Fragmented Lullabyes
by eifi
Summary: “If you want me to come back, you have to remember my name.” She could feel him smirk behind her as she frowned in response. He had told her this countless times,and countless times, she had frowned back. Mainly SasuSaku and DeiSaku For a while
1. Subtle Hints

I haven't really been writing for much, and I don't really like the Ethereal Reflections story that I wrote, but I'll leave it for those who do like it. Imma try to make this as interesting as possible without making it absolutely boring or with bad writing skill xD

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**Fragmented Lullabyes**

**Prologue**

**Subtle Hints**

A fragrant draft of the current autumn wind sneaked into the household of the Haruno family, which of course, only consisted of Sakura. The parents and the sister of the pink haired kunoichi were brutally murdered during her absence in a mission at the Cloud Country. Caressed by the chilly but crisp breeze, Sakura opened her eyes, emerald orbs looking at her duvet blankly, then closing her eyelids shut for a moment whilst gathering her crumpled thick duvet to her, and hugging herself. She sighed with nonchalant worry. Pleasant as her dream was, Sakura didn't exactly enjoy her "pleasant" dreams anymore, as she was… Rather stoic.

Her eyelashes fluttering as she opened her eyes again, she rose to a sitting position, musing whatever she was supposed to do today.

"_You can't even remember what you're supposed to do today?"_ A deep but velvety voice softly spoke. She felt warmth from behind her, strong arms cradling her from behind. She nearly allowed herself smiled from the frequent but oh so longed for visit.

"_I'll tell you,"_ The voice breathed, the warmth tickling her frozen skin, _"You have a mission to help watch the gate, but something horrifying but wonderful will happen today"_

"What do you mean?" She asked back, her voice unusually soft and relaxed, fighting the temptation to touch these warm hands, these warm arms, to turn back and look at _him_.

"…"

"Tell me."

"…"

She did the unforgivable thing. She turned around.

"Tell me ____…!"

Immediately, just as fast as he had appeared, the warmth disappeared, the warm, deep and cold voice gone but the curiosity still lingering. She was used to this though, _used to his playful self_, the person she trusted and loved the most, _the figment of her imagination,_ the person who she knew would be the death of her_, her most beloved love,_ and of course, _the only person who could bring her back to life_.

Haruno Sakura was an ANBU kunoichi, now 18 years old. She is neither weak nor merciful, she had left all emotions and guilt in her teenage self, locking them in a cage within herself, _the figment of her imagination. _The transformation scared people, the once loving and warm smile from one of village's most beloved Kunoichi, now brings fear and death to all those who dare stand in her way. The many friends she kept had all dispersed and dared not near the stoic kunoichi. Even the current Hokage, Uzimaki Naruto, the bright and cheery friend,_ her only friend,_ of Haruno Sakura, dares not call upon her unless forced to hire her for a mission, as it was a certain mission that led to her transformation, _all because of her most beloved love_.

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_It was raining._

_The heavy rain hammered down on forest floor, hollow drumming of tree trunks raised the paranoia that the young kunoichi was suffering from as she sped through the waterlogged forest leaving a faint trail of blood._

"_Lee! Neji! Can you hear me!? Just hold on a bit longer, I'll take you somewhere safer" she sobbed with a tearful voice, panic, pain and worry creeping up on her as she and carried the two unconscious young men towards the gates of Konoha as fast as she could._

_After bearing a lethal attack, she managed to flee and rescue the only other two alive ninja that had survived the attack. The other 6 ANBU perished at the attack, and Sakura managed to escape with a deep gash in her stomach. They had been ambushed on the way back from the Land of the Cloud, all she could do was shudder at the image of two dark red eyes, who looked at her not with a murderous look, but a softer look she couldn't identify. She ran away as fast as she could carrying Lee and Neji and heading towards Konoha. _

_It was raining, and unfortunately, she knew she was running out of blood, she would die soon if she didn't reach Konoha soon, and there was the fact the Sharingan user was tailing her, but she couldn't work out why he hadn't killed her yet, as she was going much slower than the Uchiha could go._

_She was followed for another minute, then slipped in the sloshy mud and fell down. She couldn't get up, she couldn't move, she was crying inside at her weak state. She was scared, like anyone else would be at her place. All strength had left her. Only able to apologize in her head to Neji and Lee, who were laying next to her, already soaked in the harsh rain, she cursed inwardly at herself, giving in to the temptation of giving all hope up. She felt dizzy and knew she would die soon._

_That's when she heard wet footsteps. _

_Unable to move still, she could only stare with her eyes open, and she was picked up to a sitting position, leaned against a warm muscular chest. She felt strong arms embrace her from behind, she was utterly confused. A sharingan user murdered her ANBU team, followed her until she fell down of exhaustion, and hugged her? And what's more, he turned her head slightly, still learning on his chest to look at his own face. His dark blue and black hair matted his masculine face. Sakura shuddered from the contact, but felt so faint at this point, she dazedly was looking at his eyes, his beautiful ebony and soft black eyes, and she could tell they were looking at hers. _

_In a slow and hesitant movement, his face reached closer, and gently brushed his lips with hers, and deepening the kiss when Sakura closed her eyes and started kissing back._

_He tasted not like blood, but like sweet roasted chestnuts, a silky taste which made her feel weaker and more placid in his arms. He held her tight with one arm, and with the other caressing her face. It felt good, weird but good, even though she was dieing._

_After a few moments of kissing her, he retreated from her lips and burrowed his head in the crook of her neck, and hugged her tightly. His breath warming up her skin, breathing in and out, rhythmically, soothing her completely._

_They were so close, after so long, she could feel his heartbeat mix with her own._

_How she longed for this moment to happen._

_Her eyes still closed, 'So warm…' she mouthed, drifting into a calm and peaceful sleep._

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Sakura, Neji and Lee were found in front of Konoha's gates and immediately taken to hospital for emergency treatment. When Sakura awoke, she had also found out that while she had been away, a rogue ninja had killed her parents and her beloved little sister. That was when she lost her _life_.

She no longer cared for who she killed, she was a tool, a tool that people could use. She didn't mind, more so, she didn't _care_.

"_Do you feel lonely without me?" _He asked her, again appearing behind her, his dark hair gently touching her cold skin, his warm hands entwined with hers, the second frequent visit.

"Of course… I miss you ___," Her voice soft and sweet, _only for him_.

"_Do you want me to come back?" _He hugged her from behind, still holding her hands. She silently nodded, her eyes closed and relaxed and her arms limp, again, fighting the temptation to look behind her.

"_If you want me to come back, you have to remember my name." _She could feel him smirk behind her as she frowned in response. He had told her this countless times, and countless times, she had frowned back.

They both knew she would never be able to do that.

A sudden knocking interrupted her trails of thoughts, and her visitor had left abruptly again. She cursed in her head, annoyed at the interruption.

"Haruno Sakura, are you in there?" A male voice called, his voice layered with a subtle hint of fear and anxiety, probably an unlucky chuunin that was forced to summon her.

"What is it?" She replied, her voice heartless and cold towards the lesser ninja.

"The Hokage summons you"

"…On my way," she sighed, waiting for the chuunin's presence to disappear, "…Are you going to watch me get dressed?" she asked irritably. The young chuunin just blushed in response, mumbling an apology and running away as fast as he could manage.

She immediately jumped out of bed, and proceeded towards her wardrobe. Getting dressed, she also gathered her kunai and normal ninja gear, then set out towards the Hokage tower, along the rooftops of houses to avoid any commotion.

Arriving at the Hokage's Office, she knocked thrice, then entered. Inside, she saw a very nervous but familiar Hokage. Lifting her pink eyebrow in suspicion, she advanced nearer, without bothering to wait for the Hokage to beckon her.

"Sakura-ch- …Sakura, I'm sort of out of guards at the gate today, as a lot are stationed around at the new chuunin exam fights, can I ask you to stand guard at the gates? Please?" He asked, again, with the slight tone of fear driven into his voice, but laced with pity unlike the previous ninja. She was getting pretty pissed off with all this fearing and alienating already.

"_See? I told you you'd be at the gates today" _The smooth tempting voice popping up again.

'_**Mm. I guess I should help out then, seeing how he is being so brave as to try to talk to me.'**_

"_Heh, you just can't wait till you see what I was talking about can you?"_

'_**Hush. It's not exactly my fault when you always speak in puzzles.'**_

"_Excuses, excuses. Ah now, you may want to reply to the dobe soon, he looks as if he might kill himself."_

"I'll stand guard then Hokage-Sama. Ja ne."

She turned around to leave, but was immediately stopped.

"Ah! Sakura! We also found out today, possible whereabouts of Sasuke!" The blonde shouted out, then took at a second thought to think of whether he should of not. She turned around curiously, _he_ appeared behind her at the new fact.

"Sasuke? Who's that..?" She replied, her eyes showing utter confusion. Naruto hesistated. _He _sighed and left.

"Maaah, maah! Never mind, just an old pal of mine! Please go guard the gates well! Like you probably will do!" He spoke uneasily, his voice laced with worry and pity.

Sakura left the Hokage tower through the crowds of ninja, all of which were scared shitless of her, and got pissed off of course.

'_**What an asshole, if he doesn't want to ask me in person, he could of just sent me a letter or something. Saves me coming all the way here to get pissed off and alienated.'**_

"_Shhhh, it'll be worth it. I promise koishii." _

Sakura doubted his words, he was her lifeline, but she still doubted it, but she thought she may as well entertain him and herself, as there was nothing else worthwhile to do in her opinion. She headed to the gates.

When she arrived, she noted Naruto wasn't lying when he said he didn't have enough guards. She sighed. Bored already.

A few minutes later, which seemed pretty slow to her, _he_ appeared again, yawning and playfully teasing Sakura on what a wonderful job she was doing.

'_**Shut up, I could be at home right now.'**_

"_Doing what? Dusting photos? Cooking ravioli?"_ He chuckled as he felt her anger, but she seemed to brush it off.

'…_**What were you talking about something horrifying and wonderful anyway?'**_

"_You'll see, quite soon in fact."_ This time as he said it, Sakura discerned a tinge of hurt in his words.

'_**Why do you sound so upset then?'**_

"_Cuz you won't need me anymore."_

'…_**?'**_

"_The third me will come and get you. You won't need me anymore."_

'_**What are you talking abo-'**_ She was unable to finish her sentence as her eyes widened.

_Red Clouds_

_Dazing away_

_**Sleep my flower**_

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**I haven't really been writing much lately, and my english has crashed downhill, not that it was any good before (rofl) I've scrapped Ethereal Reflections also, and I'll just be sticking to this story and perhaps adding oneshots to CCSN or something. Sorry guys DX**

**Oh and Read and review =o Dont be too mean pl0x **


	2. Death

This update came early 3 I thought it'd be up on Saturday xD Not Tuesday xD Anyway 3 Hope you like this chapter xD Please read and review =D No burning though, my english isn't so good I already know, but I try my best xD

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**Fragmented Lullabyes**

**Chapter 1**

**Death**

_She was sitting in a café, waiting for her Oolong tea and Raspberry Cheesecake to arrive, getting more irritated by the second. Originally, she was on a mission to gather information about Akatsuki, but somehow she got caught in a heavy rain and lost track of a certain blonde haired man who she was tracking along the festival's market. And so, she ended up sitting in a café pissed off at herself and hungry._

"_What's wrong?" He asked._

'_**I can't believe I lost my target cause of a little bit of rain' **__She sighed inwardly._

"_Shh… Cheer up, its only day one, and it's still morning," He appeared behind her standing, and gently rested his hands on her shoulders, "You've got plenty of time to fix your shortcoming."_

_She sighed in response, she could do nothing against him, he was totally immune to any anger headed at him from the pink haired girl. To him, she was as dangerous as a kitten, but at least she as affectionate, and much prettier in his own opinion. Only she mattered to him. No one else. She is his precious._

_Whilst she was arguing, not saying she was succeeding, a dark blonde saw, and noticed, the pink haired kunoichi. He smirked, and walked over to the waiter, who was on his way to his customer with her order, and told the waiter he would give it to her. The waiter agreed, he was scared as hell of the kunoichi's murderous expressions and the rumours of Haruno Sakura, the merciless killer. _

_He was given a glass of Oolong tea and a slice of raspberry cheesecake topped with a giant helping of vanilla ice cream, and proceeded to the annoyed girl. _

_Sakura, who noticed since the blonde started talking to the waiter, lifted her eyebrows in suspicion and amusement. The blonde was wearing parachute pants, a black shirt and a black military jacket (A/N Like the one in Armani Exchange XD). Too thirsty to even care that her target was coming towards her, she only focused on the tea._

_Her 'Target' set the tea in front of her, and didn't try to hide the deep chuckle that erupted from his voice as she swiped the tea from his hand and drank half of it in a single gulp. An awkward silence then hung over them, unnoticeable in the busy café they were in._

"_Who are you?" She started off, seeing as he had no intention himself to start, whilst grabbing the cake from him too._

"_Hmm? You don't know who I am? Ah that's right un, you just got told to gather info about me." He spoke cheerfully, almost delighted at the company. It was obvious he was offering some kind of trade. Sakura tensed at the reply, calculating whether this was a trick or the real thing. She wanted to ask _him _for his opinion, and she did._

"_Why not?" Was his reply, short and sweet. Sakura inwardly nodded to this, seeing how she could escape the ninja anyway._

"_..Who are you?" She continued, and her company took this as an agreement. He smirked again._

"_You can call me Aijin, Sakura-chan… Un"_

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Obsidian met with Jade.

Two men clad with red clouds stood before her, one looking at her with beautiful but blank smoldering eyes and dark black hair, the other was strange. He had glanced at her, then looked straight down at the floor before Sakura could even see his face. There was a faint aura of murderous intent, but it only seemed to be coming from the man with dark eyes. She didn't know whether to be afraid or not.

"_Sakura?" _A worried voice spoke, arms wrapping round her body again, hugging her tightly. She was pissed off, and there was nothing for now to make her forgive him. Only time could tell.

'_**Who are these men?' **_She asked with no hesitation, angry at him for not telling her about this. She felt him hesitate from behind her.

"_Don't let them take you easily, and don't show them your complete abilities. Don't look into his eyes!" _He spoke, completely ignoring her question, and disappearing again. Sakura inwardly cursed, she knew she'd have to fight these two men.

"Haruno Sakura," A dark voice, similar to _his_ spoke, "You're to come with us."

Swiftly, as fast as she got pissed off, she threw out smoke bombs, followed up by throwing several exploding tag attached kunai at the enemies direction. As an extremely talented kunoichi, she could pinpoint where they were from their chakra, figuring out where she could run was simple enough. Guessing that the best choice was to flee to Konoha and ask for help, she headed for the gates direction. Until of course, she got scolded.

"BAKA SAKURA!" He cried out, "Your friends will be brought into this!!!"

'**...'**

Grudgingly, Sakura knew he was right, but too stubborn to ever admit it. Nevertheless, she sped as far away as she could get from the enemies, who were finally out of the smoke screen, and when she reached an oak tree, she jumped up and set out a help signal flare.

As soon as the flare had been set, she felt herself be rugby tackled, and pinned against the tree at her neck with an extremely strong grip. She retaliated to this and punched her attacker in the stomach with her chakra infused knuckles. Unfortunately, what she hit was only a kage bunshin, and as the smoke cleared, she felt a stiff cold pain in her stomach. Opening her mouth out to scream from pain, she found she couldn't. Her knees buckled and she fell onto the floor, clutching her wound, trying so desperately hard to heal it, but her attempts were useless. Somehow, they had drained her chakra, and also made her unable to move her arms or legs.

_He_ watched, unable to do anything in that form, just watching sympathetically at his precious koishii. He couldn't do anything, as this was part of his plan. It'd all pay up in the end, she will never be hurt again.

Meanwhile the man with dark hair walked closer and closer.

"_Don't look into his eyes!"_

She looked away from him, focusing on a patch of grass.

The man knelt down, clutched a bunch of her hair and made her face him. She clamped her eyelids shut at this. Mercilessly, he stabbed her stomach wound again, causing to open her eyes in pain. Ebony eyes became crimson, and she finally fell into a deep slumber.

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"_Aijin-chan, who are you really?" She asked hopefully._

_They were in a starlit field near a hill, taking a break from playing in the festival. Sakura had made many attempts to ask him questions, but he had always managed to move her attention to something fun, and actually made her enjoy the festival. _

"_SUGOI! Fireworks! Ne ne Sakura-chan, let's go over to that hill and watch them un!" He said cheerfully, grabbing her hand and entwining his fingers with her own, and dragging her towards a hill. He went too fast though, and they tumbled down on each other laughing and giggling as they fell, as Sakura tripped. Deidara was happy in this position though, being on top and all._

"_Hey! Stop changing the-" She couldn't finish the sentence, she was bewildered at the fireworks that she saw over his shoulder. He smiled at her, and hugged her affectionately, like _he_ would normally do. He dug his face into her neck, and took in a deep breath. She smelt like vanilla, and he was so tempted to find out if her skin tasted of vanilla too. He wanted to doze off in her arms, he was sure that she would get rid of his frequent nightmares._

_After a few moments of watching the fireworks, Sakura noticed that there was a guy on top of her, she blushed deeply and shoved him off. "Pervert!" she cried out._

"_Itai! Sakura-chan, that was mean, un!" He whimpered playfully. But Sakura humphed at this, turning her head away in synchronization._

"_You still haven't told me who you are!" _

_At this, he just looked downwardly, smile gone and seriousness drawn all over his face. He sighed, and moved closer to cup her face._

"_Koishii. There are some things better to leave hidden, for your own good." He spoke softly, while staring directly into her eyes. Sakura was confused, but worried, as it was unlike him to speak so formally and straight to the point. Also pretty upset, she was sick of being protected all the time, though, she couldn't exactly remember who was protecting her, or what she was being protected from. She just dazedly watched him close his eyes, then opened them again, revealing beautiful cerulean pools._

_That's when he moved in closer._

_Closer._

…_Closer_

_And while they kissed sweetly, no one, not even Sakura noticed the sad but murderous glare of a certain raven haired man watching from a top a tree._

…

"_Are you content now?_

_Are you content with my anger?_

_My rage?_

_**This is my punishment.**__"_

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_This I guess is the introduction to the DeiSaku, but like, trust me when I say, it is going to be mainly SasuSaku xD I didn't intend to put DeiSaku into this, but I just love the pairing and it will help the story flow much more. And apologies on the vaguish battle scene, (not really much of a battle though) as I had to literally force myself to write it XD_

_**Please read and review =D**_

_Oh and for references;_

_~Aijin = Sweetheart_

_~Sugoi = WOW O_O (Deidara style xD)_

_~Itai = Ouchies!_

_~Koishii = Beloved, Flower, Precious. (Both Sasuke and Deidara call Sakura this)_

_Sorry that this chapter is kind of short, but I just wanted to stop at that point, I did intend to write more in this chapter, but I'll carry it on into chapter 2 ^^; I just felt that it was right for me to stop writing at that point XD So I tried to lengthen the bits that I did write in this chapter._

_Oh and the armani jacket is so sexy, in their website go into mens then jackets then look for the military jacket xD Its sexy =O But my some other friends say its overdone a bit . _

_Love their designs for women though xD Remember to review! :D_


	3. Tears

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This chapter is kind of cool =O I like the end (rofl) and please Read and review =D No burning pl0x 3 If you don't like my writing style please dont read it x-x (I actually know my writing style is pretty bad) and thankies to Rida who helped me write a bit of it :'D (Cause I got pissed off whenever I saw what I wrote for like the first few paragraphs, so she helped me change some of the words xD And I tried too :'D Its so cool that if you put a few words in or change the word order that a piece of writing becomes so much better! XD

**Anyway =D Enjoy 3**

Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 2**

**Tears**

It was cold.

She was laying on a bed, only covered by her own blood stained clothes. Unable to move herself at all, she just stared blankly at the ceiling, and the tiny bit of wall she could reveal after tilting her head oh so painfully and slowly. The room itself was dimly lit by a white candle on a table at Sakura's bedside. It was a sort of mauve brown colour on the walls, and Sakura could see faint but beautiful drawings of things like butterflies, birds and many other things. She could even see clouds and dragons. She actually wished she was fully conscious, just so that she could admire these drawings better, and if the kunoichi wasn't in so much pain, the experience wouldn't have been so bad.

She felt numb. She couldn't say that she felt the most wonderful feeling after being drugged, knocked unconscious and having her chakra drained to a naught. She wanted to doze off, her head was pounding and her wounds stung in an agonizing manner, and she still was unable to move, but she had to try to remember the series of events that had occurred before she went beddy byes. Her fatigue and drowsiness got the better of her though, and she started to drift off to sleep.

Just before she fell asleep though, she heard footsteps approaching her. She just gazed blankly at the patch of wall that she had been staring at earlier, she couldn't be bothered to rebut, argue or show any defence, she was way too tired.

The two men from before entered the room. One of them stood behind, waiting at the doorway out of Sakura's line of sight, and the other one with dark black bangs walked slowly towards her, checking if she was conscious or not. Knowing she was awake, he plainly said, "Do not leave this room." And turned to leave. As if she actually had the energy to even move, she thought sarcastically. She waited for the other man to leave. But the other man didn't leave, he just glanced at his partner slightly as he passed him and whispered a question. In reply the man just nodded, slightly irritated but still nodded, and finally took his leave, and the other one immediately took action.

As the shyer man walked closer towards her, Sakura couldn't help but look curiously at the strange acting person. As she glanced, Sakura's eyes widened with shock. She wanted to scream and cry, but her voice wouldn't come out. In the end, she just closed her eyes and tried painfully to shift her way in the opposite direction, like a stubborn kid who didn't get his/her wanted ice lolly. As she did this, she felt warm, familiar hands moving over her stomach and her head. She wanted to flinch from the touch, but instead melted into it as she felt his warm chakra flow into her, soothing her and relieving her of the pain.

"Sakura." He spoke. A single word which had broken the silence. His voice was clear, nostalgic but it was missing the playfulness that was in it from when they met before. Sakura could only sigh in relief of the disappearance of her pain. She sat up and looked down, ignoring the blonde man beside her.

"Sakura." He repeated, his voice embedded with anxiety and awkwardness. He moved closer to hug her, his arms, trembling with nervousness as he encaged her wholesome with his body. He let out a minute sigh of relief when about four seconds passed and she leant into his chest, guessing that he wasn't hated completely. His heart skipped a beat when she finally spoke.

"Who are you?" As she spoke, she leant her ear against his chest, around where his heart was. Her voice was cold, frigid but laced with dignity. Sighing, and knowing he had no choice but to reply, he figured he may as well get the whole question and answer thing over and done with, as she'll only keep getting more irritated.

"My name is Deidara, un. The man who hurt you is called Itachi. Uchiha Itachi. Don't mess in his path, un. A glare from that guy will give you shivers for a month… Un. Don't worry though," He chuckled nervously at his upcoming joke, "I'm the one who carried you here, not him." She couldn't tell if he was lying or not, his heart was beating pretty rapidly anyway. She pondered whether he would be lieing or not, but then again, he had lied to her a lot so far, why wouldn't he lie now? But she would take his word about Itachi, the hair on the back of her neck stood when he glared at her back.

"…I'm sorry." He finally said. By this time, Sakura was really angry, and Deidara could feel it.

"Sorry for what, lying to me over and over again? Maybe you should be an actor, 'cuz you're really good at faking things." She replied, cold-heartedly. She immediately regretted it though, as she felt him tense up, and managed to withhold an angry growl within his throat. Deidara knew she had the right to be angry, but the way she was punishing him was making him increasingly more pissed off. The blonde had a temper too, more viscous than some.

Sakura couldn't take the tense and angry atmosphere, she had better things to do, like get away from this annoying place. Immediately, she pushed Deidara away from her, and started towards the dragon marked door. Deidara instantaneously leapt (A/N More like teleported ._.) in front of the door, making Sakura stop in her tracks.

"Let me pass." She demanded angrily.

"Sakura. You're not in any shape to fight me, and you shouldn't even have any energy to walk, let alone talk back to me. Don't make me angry." He warned, his blue eyes darkening.

"Let me **pass**." She spoke through gritted teeth, while advancing closer towards the door. Deidara growled in response. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

"Sakura. Please… Don't try it." He asked pleadingly. Sakura was right in front of him at that point.

"Why not? It's not like you have to hold back or anything. I don't see why you don't kill me already," Sakura fumed.

"Sakura. Shut up." Deidara was losing his temper. Really fast. "I never lied to you back then, apart from my name maybe, but still, don't you dare think you understand everything. You're just a weak little girl." He regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth, his heart wrenching as he saw her face pale. She didn't cry, but her eyes were screaming.

"…I **hate** you." She spoke, clearly with rage and sadness. "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE Y-"

Her eyes widened with shock as Deidara kissed her gently, completely muffling what she had wanted to say, and totally negating her anger. Deidara broke the kiss after what he thought was her becoming calmer, and hugged her gently and lovingly.

"I really am sorry." He spoke softly, breathing into her ear. Sakura sighed, and drifted off to sleep. (A/N Standing.. o_O)

Deidara picked her bridal style, and gently placed her onto the bed. He then took off his cloak and put it over her, and sat on a nearby chair, watching her happily, imagining what kinds of dreams she'll have.

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"_Ne, ne. Will you always be with me?" Sakura asked one early peaceful morning, learning dozily into his muscular and warm chest. She was sitting on top of the Konoha Mountains, as she was meant to be on look out from there. She had been pretty bored, she didn't even understand why anyone would attack from a cliff, though, she had to admit, it was a pretty nice view. But she was still bored. Luckily for her, he had came to her again, as he could even sense that she was pretty much bored, and on the verge of breaking something._

"_Yup. Even if you can't recognise me, I'll always be with you. I'll never leave you. I promise you koishii." His voice was gentle, everything about him with Sakura was gentle. He buried his face further into her hair, and rested his cheek at the crook of her neck._

"_Hum… This feels nice…" She continued, gazing at the view of konoha and the forests beyond it. By now, she had already gotten used to fighting the temptation of looking at him. She didn't want this feeling to end, she felt so safe in his arms. _

_They spent several moments chatting idly in each other's arms, until their mindless soft chatter was interrupted by a flurry of footsteps. Not caring whether the person coming would hear her or not, she had every intention to keep chatting, her company however did not agree to this, and kept quiet._

"_Haruno Sakura, please report to the Hokage's office immediately." A man with short light brown hair announced quickly, panic written all over his face. Sakura merely nodded in response and gave a final squeeze to his hand. And with that, she set off, leaving a worried raven haired man behind._

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Sakura's eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes dreamily. She had had a pleasant dream, sort of, as it was of a past event with _him_ that she had almost forgotten about, but she was still in a dreamlike state. She went back to sleep for a few more moments, cuddling up to her self-heating and especially squishy pillow. She breathed in, and smelt vanilla, so she started gnawing and licking at the pillow. The pillow, started chuckling from the tigglish feeling, which of course Sakura thought was weird anyway. Even weirder when the pillow gave a huge yelp from when she bit into it, _hard._ Sakura woke up with a start and sat up, and saw a very distressed Deidara. Before she even saw the huge bite marks and hickeys, she shouted furiously, "Why the hell are you in my bed!?"

"This is my bed, un!" He whined, rubbing his sore nibbled neck. Sakura opened her mouth to rebut, but she couldn't think of any words as the chain of events came back to her, and as they did, a deep blush formed on her face, and she could only shout an embarrassed "Shut up!" back at him. Although, he had a look of amusement more than pain or irritation. They ended up in another awkward silence, and yet again, it was Deidara to break the ice.

"Did you have a good dream?" He asked playfully, referring to the biting and licking she did to his neck and body. She punched him in response, making him land on the cold floor on his butt. He chuckled at her antics, while rubbing his butt painfully. It had seemed Sakura had forgotten that he had sort of kidnapped her, but he was much happier she did forget.

Meanwhile, Sakura however realised in a faint shock that _he _wasn't there with her. She hadn't noticed it at all, but she was _alone_. This alone scared her, and she was forced to enter a chain of thoughts on where did he go? She felt so guilty that she hadn't noticed, as he meant the world to her. While she was thinking, Deidara noticed her abrupt seriousness, and waved his hand in front of her.

"Sakura..?" Her name rolled off beautifully off his tongue, but Deidara said it with a slight worried tone weaved into his expression. At looking at Deidara, Sakura remembered something important. What he had said back then…

_[__**'Why do you sound so upset then?'**_

"_Cuz you won't need me anymore."_

'…_**?'**_

"_The third me will come and get you. You won't need me anymore.]_

Sakura was utterly confused. But she missed him, and he was wrong, she did need him. He was her _life_.

Tears formed in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks down to her chin, her body trembling with fear. Deidara noticed with a start, and started wiping her tears.

"Koishii? Whats wrong?"

"..t ..ay…" She spoke raggedly, her words coming out in half sobs. He lied to her. **He lied to her!** He promised that he'd always be with her! **He promised!**

"…Sakura?"

"Get away…"

"Sakura, tell me what's wrong!"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" She screamed, hysterical, and ran towards the door leaving poor Deidara to run after her, opening it to bump into the very man she was warned about. And before she had noticed it, she was knocked unconscious, letting Itachi scold the blonde harshly.

**-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-**

_Sakura was on her way to the Lightning country._

"_We need you to participate in an S rank mission in Lightning country. The Raikage may be planning war against Konoha, and so..." The hokage paused, pondering how he should tell her. "We would like to ask you to marry the Raikage as a peace treaty, or at least to spy on him before he declares war. Please remember you can choose not to." Naruto gulped with fear as he saw an indescribable look on Sakura's face. A face not of shock, not of anger but a face of just pure blankness. She knew she would have to do it, since it was an order from the Hokage and all, she had a choice her ass._

_And because of that, she was on her way to the Lightning Country, being escorted by several ANBU in case they get sabotaged. She had to admit, she was surprised some people didn't want her to marry the Raikage, as she thought that everyone would be glad that she would be gone from their lives. Instead, they had been attacked nearly 4 times in the first day, and about 6 in the next. _

_It was on the third day when they were tired, exhausted and hungry that they had trouble. _

_The first attack was brief, only a few bandits attacked them, not actual ninjas. _

_But the next one, was the problem._

_They were surrounded by tons of missing-nin, all of which had a plan to attack the Lightning and Leaf villages as they went into war, their backs turned, and they didn't really want that plan to go to ashes. _

_It was a quick and bloody fight. All the ANBU had been wiped out, Sakura was the last one standing as she had managed to pummel down her attackers so far, but she was exhausted and outnumbered, and she couldn't even heal her allies as they were all beyond healing. _

_She knew she was going to die. _

_As a dark crimson haired man walked towards where she knelt on the grass, paralyzed by muscle tendons breaking from the extreme chakra pressure, clutching the hilt of his blade, she actually wondered if she would go to heaven or hell, if she would see her parents again. At that moment, she didn't even care if Konoha went into war with the Raikage, what has Konoha ever done for her?_

_He yanked a handful of her hair and brought her face to look at his, she heard him murmur something about a waste of a beauty or something. The pain of her wounds and the pain of her weaknesses brought a tear to her eye, and that's when she noticed something._

_The crimson haired man let go of her hair, making her collapse onto the floor, semi-conscious. She saw the man back away, and the rest of the missing-nin stare at her direction with wide eyes, fear etched into every part of them. _

_She tried to look behind her, and all she could see were a pair of beautiful red eyes and a shadow, glaring at the missing-nin. But she couldn't stay awake any longer. She entered the dream world, once again, but not before she was held softly by familiar warm arms, and heard a "You're safe now, koishii." Breathed into her ear._

_As soon as she was asleep, the shadow rested her down softly, and instantly glared at the missing-nin, his murderous intent choking them. _

"_U-Uchiha Sasuke-sama, w-what are you doing here?" One of them pathetically stuttered, aghast at the motion of the young man reaching out for his katana._

"_I won't forgive you." He spoke, his mouth forming a grim line. "You hurt her, and even worse, you made her cry." At this, a few rouge ninjas tried to run away, and without Sasuke moving an inch, they were all slaughtered and killed within a millisecond._

"_Though, I guess I should thank you for not forcing me to kill the Raikage, as since now she'll have an excuse not to marry him." He spoke laughingly, and the missing-nin tried to laugh too, they were all nervous wrecks._

"_But… Making her cry is unforgiveable." He concluded to himself, and unsheathed his katana._

_And from miles away, people could hear their screams as they were murdered ruthlessly and painfully._

_Sasuke picked up Sakura, kissed her lovingly on her forehead and whispered again in her ear. "I'll come back for you soon, I promise. I love you koishii." He whispered gently, only gentle with her. And with that, he placed her at a tree, carved some letters in it, and set off to his next task._

"_I'm tired of watching you_

_I want to touch you_

_I want to hold you_

_**And make you mine and mine alone."**_

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**Hope you enjoyed =D Please review =D It makes me happier and makes me want to write more! lol And sorry if parts of it is too vague, but I hate going on and on about things =S**

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	4. Visitor

**Hiyaa xD Remember me? D: Sorry about the long delay for the chapter D; To make it up to you, I've already written like, a third of the next chapter lol xD I hope you enjoy this chapter! Remember :D Read and review XD No burning please xD I already know my english is quite (VERY) bad xD**

**Also, this wont contain many spoilers, just to make sure, and Im not gonna pay attention to what actually happens in the story. I love Itachi to bits, more than Sasuke, I would really really hate to see Itachi die in this story, and he may or may not be very important in this story later :'D**

**I don't own Naruto lol. Just to make sure xD **

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Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 3**

**Visitor**

_It was once. Only once that he broke the invisible rules that he made himself. Only once, but that already was too many. He was pushing his limits already, and he was to the point where there was no return. It was pure hell, forcing himself to distance himself further from her, it was for her own safety rather than his sanity. He didn't care if he went mad, so long as she was safe. But his self control was withering, and that one time at breaking the rules almost destroyed it completely._

_He was around Konoha, his ghostly jutsu contacting him and informing him of Sakura's recent __dilemnas__, completely intent in sorting them out. Lately, he noticed her increasing frustrations, her sadness and her becoming completely fed up with the village, on the verge of pursuing the same type of life that he had escaped to. Refusing to let this happen, he decided that he'll do his best to with-hold his temptations and urges, and try his best to brighten her life up, not that he thought it could do much. Still, he would try, but he subconsciously knew he was just looking for an excuse to see her and to hear her melodic voice._

_He easily evaded any ANBU that were on patrol and infiltrated Konoha successfully within minutes. It was quite easy actually, he expected to confront at least 4 ANBU since it was only a few minutes before midnight._

_Speeding through the houses of Konoha, he could say the memories were all quite nostalgic, memories of each bustling street and lively shop etched into his mind. As each nostalgic sight flew past him, his blood ran faster as the excitement to see his beloved Sakura again rose. His heartbeat like a pounding metronome, the joy and anticipation within revealed itself with one of his trademark smirks, his eyes gleaming with excitement and joy. Anyone who saw the Uchiha now probably wouldn't even be able to recognise him, partially because of his amazing strength and beauty, but also because of the fact he seemed so... happy._

_Finally arriving at his destination, he hesitated before knocking on the door but not quite because of his nerves. Smirking at his antics, he decided it would be a shame to wake her up with a knock on the door and ruin the surprise. He figured if he had come all the way to Konoha just to see her, he may as well surprise her and give her a memory she'll keep forever. His smirk transforming into a wide grin, he leapt onto a nearby tree._

_Jumping up to her bedroom window, he took a deep breath before he opened it silently. Pushing away the curtains that blocked him, he felt a wave of danger fly to him. Shifting his head to the side slightly, he smirked as he caught a kunai, and tried his best to hold in his laughter when he saw a half-asleep but still angry kunoichi in her pyjamas, sitting in her bed under her thick duvet. _

_She was pretty startled to say the least. She was having another twisted and sick dream where she had met _him_, but she felt herself be woken up but a soft shuffling in her room. Half asleep, she didn't know who it was, no sign of chakra but she couldn't tell if she knew the person hiding behind her curtains or not. She rose her head to look at the person who snuck into her room, sending a kunai flying towards her curtain, only to find it was caught. She sensed no murderous intent, nor any movement. Maybe it was just a cat, or maybe she was just dreaming. She could have been, until she saw what emerged from the curtains._

**--**

It was really, really cold. She found herself to be sleeping on the floor of some other random room. She got up groggily and painfully, some ribs broken and a vicious pain in her left arm. She guessed it was 'cause she tried to run away again, as her chakra was also drained. She sat up painfully, seething as she breathed in, her ribs puncturing her lungs. After a while, she managed to get herself to a wall, and she rested there, her eyes closed and breathing really slowly, trying not to breathe at all. Maybe if they saw her nearly dead, they'd give her some medication, or even better, just dump her body somewhere.

She heard a knock on the door, and the door opening. She couldn't be bothered to open her eyes, so she just pretended to be asleep. Wasn't so convincing though, the intruder obviously could tell she was awake. As if anyone could sleep naturally with no medication with a bunch of broken ribs. Despite this, her visitor was quite understanding. Completely accepting the fact she may not really want to talk right now, he entered the room with a few pills and a glass of water.

"Hey…" A familiar voice spoke out softly. Sakura didn't answer, nor did she even try to confirm if she noticed him or not, she felt it was too difficult and painful to even open her mouth. Deidara saw this, and decided he would be the one to instigate the conversation this time.

"Sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have let you past me. Itachi forced me to leave you in this room, a prison, rather than my own... 'Cause he thinks I'll let you try to escape again... un. As you can guess, Itachi... Itachi kind of broke your ribs, and also kind of snapped your arm…" He trailed off, he probably said more, but Sakura wasn't listening. She concentrated on how long it would take for her to gather enough chakra to heal herself. She really, really wanted to go home, heal her injuries and take a warm shower. Not even bothering to listen to the blond, her thoughts trailed back to her home and her warm king sized bed. Her mind wandering, she completely forgot the situation she was in, and drifted to sleep.

Deidara watched her innocently fall asleep. At this, his face saddened. He didn't really like the idea of her being broken and injured because of him, and his worry about her every day was increasing, her skin going paler and her heart beating slower.

"I have some pain killers, it'll ease the pain. I can't perform any medical jutsu so that'll have to do. Sorry… un." He spoke softly to himself, his voice apologetic. He walked closer to her with his pills and water in hand. He put the pills gently into her mouth, and tipped her head backwards as he gave her the water slowly (A/N I asked like, 4 friends, and they didn't know what the proper word is rofl xD so Im just gonna say gave. Sorry if it sounds terrible xD), grimacing as his hands made contact with her frozen skin. He slowly cupped her cheek with his hand, almost falling as his body shuddered from the sudden coldness.

Kissing her forehead gently, he stripped himself of his cloak and placed it around Sakura's shoulders, hoping it would keep her warm. He gazed at her one last time, and exited the room.

**--**

_Her eyes widened with shock. In front of her stood a beautiful raven haired man, with dark onyx eyes. He was dressed in standard ANBU uniform, but his face wasn't hidden by a mask. He had an arrogant smirk on his face, and peaceful eyes that betrayed the deadly aura that he seemed to emit. His eyes reflected the full moon perfectly, his eyes almost luminous. _

_Her heart clenched at the sight of him, her tears unconsciously falling. When she realized this, she quickly snapped out of her reverie and wiped her tears. She grabbed a kunai and held it in front of her, to seem like it would protect her from whoever had intruded on her. She was about to attack, but was stopped as she saw the beautiful man before her vanished. She stood up in shock, only to be pulled back by an arm around her waist, and a hand on her kunai. _

"_Sakura." The man whispered into her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin. His voice was deep and mellow, but deeply soothing to her. Without realizing it, she relaxed and even let go of the kunai, and his grip on her loosened to match her comfort. The man crossed his legs on her bed, resting her on his lap and chest, her face at the crook of his neck. He moved his other hand to her head, weaving his fingers into her silky hair, and breathing in her scent. Meanwhile, she was speechless. She considered herself being asleep still, and that it was just a dream. She felt so safe in this man's arms, even though she had probably never met him before. How did this man know her name? Why, even though she was sure she didn't know him, did it feel like she knew this man? _

"_Sakura." The man whispered again, he leaned back slowly, his eyes locking with her own. Sakura looked into his eyes, and gasped as his dark eyes turned crimson red, understanding immediately that she was in the arms of an Uchiha. Before she could even try to struggle, he silenced her with his mouth, pushing her into the bed with his own weight. He shuddered at the warmth of her lips, and a faint subtle taste of vanilla. She was utterly confused as the exiled ninja carried on kissing her passionately, trying to push him away. Her efforts were in vain though, as he held her hands together and pinned them onto the bed. _

_Slowly and delicately, like a predator savouring his prey, he bit into her bottom lip, causing her to gasp, gaining entrance to her mouth. Exploring her mouth, savouring her taste. He noticed her stop struggling, and instead letting herself being taken by him. He let her arms go and started caressing her body, one arm around her waist, one travelling down her cheek and caressing her neck playing with locks of hair. Sakura moaned under him, muffled by his lips, only separating when they needed air. Slowly, she wove her fingers with his raven hair, which actually seemed much softer than it looked. She was so tempted to close her eyes and let him have his way with her, but she knew that this man could be gone in seconds. She was etching his image, his smell, his touch into her memory._

_After a few moments, the Uchiha pulled himself back, panting. His eyes were filled with desire, making her heart flutter. After a few silent moments, he leaned down and started kissing her neck, earning a pleasurable moan from the woman under him. Clenching and pulling his hair, she didn't even care about the fact she didn't know this man, she just wanted this blissful feeling to last forever. The man on top of her seemed to feel the same as he nibbled her ear lobe, whispering and moaning pleasurable moans into her ear. _

"_Sakura." He suddenly stopped, causing her to open eyes that she didn't notice were closed. His face was pained and sombre, desperate even. She wanted to ask what was wrong, but her voice wouldn't come out. He looked like he was restraining himself, hesitating before he spoke._

"_Sakura..." He started, closing his eyes before he continued, as if contemplating something before opening them again to continue. "Here's your chance to say no. Your only chance to refuse me." He spoke softly, but she could feel chills from the seriousness and dire need in his voice. She wanted to ask what was happening, to clarify what she was thinking, but her facial expression gave her away before she managed to even open her mouth._

"_Once you accept me, I probably won't let you go. I'm a selfish man Sakura, and I will probably keep you in the dark about everything. Here's your last chance to refuse me..." He closed his eyes again, he didn't want to let her see his sincere fear of rejection. Taking one last deep breath, he continued. "Tell me bluntly, you don't have to be forced to do anything." _

_As he opened his eyes, he felt warm lips touch his softly, and he understood what her decision was. Instantly, his self control broke, and as instantly as that. That one rule was broken._

**--**

When she woke up, she found she wasn't cold. Instead she found she had an akatsuki cloak wrapped round her tightly, and it smelled slightly like Deidara. She also noticed she had enough chakra to heal her ribs, but not her arm. Breathing slowly, she concentrated and mended her ribs. Relieved to be able to breathe properly without risk of puncturing her lungs, not even mentioning the sharp pain in her lungs, she slowly stood up resting on the wall she slept against. The room she was in was filled with sunlight, which she found came from a small window. It was raining, but she could still see several farmers working in the rain on their fields. She couldn't tell which crop it was, since they were only just starting to sow the seeds, so she decided to try to look at the small landscape that surrounded the fields. Her attempts ended up as failures, as a dreary morning mist seemed to hide whatever was beyond the fields. Otherwise, all she saw were small typical farming barns.

'_So much for that idea...'_ She remarked inwardly, bored out of her wits. Somehow, she started to miss her sarcastic non-existent friend. She started to long for his company; it had been so long since she had last heard his teasing voice, so long since she had felt his warmth on her neck, her hands and body. Since that night, since she was visited by that unknown man, she couldn't help but imagine her non-existent friend as that beautiful man that made love to her that night. It was wrong of course, the person that had been with her all these years, protecting her and keeping her company, cheering her up when she needed to be... But ever since that night, she couldn't stop herself from idealising the person hiding from her as that coal eyed sharingan user.

It had been quite a while since that had happened, probably half a year in fact. On that day, she couldn't deny the disappointment that she was expecting when she woke up after that morning. She had expected it, really. But any amount of expectation couldn't prevent the sad disappointment that she felt when she felt the empty bedsheets. The only evidence he had ever been there, that it wasn't actually a dream, were the tainted bedsheets and the various love bites that he had given Sakura.

She sighed. She was so bored she was even thinking about that night that shouldn't have ever happened. She couldn't say she regretted the night though, not convincingly anyway. She still had dreams of that man embracing her on nights that had a full moon. Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time, she slid down the wall, sitting down as she fell. This would be a long wait before anyone would come to save her.

**--**

_He couldn't believe himself. He was such a fool. Cursing and muttering to himself, quietly though so she couldn't hear him, he slowly untangled himself from her petite body. He was extremely angry with himself, how could he lose control like that? What's more, she saw him, and she saw his eyes. She would be able to find out who he was. Everything could be ruined because of his stupid lack of control. He sighed helplessly. He couldn't bring himself to say that he regretted the previous night. He needed her, desperately, but that still wouldn't let himself forgive himself for doing such a thing. He would definitely make sure... He would definitely make sure he would keep his distance unless he needed to be near her, and make sure he wouldn't break the rules again._

_Taking a deep breath, he turned towards her naked self hidden under a sheet of thin blanket, the duvet probably kicked off during their love making. He caressed her cheek gently, taking extra care not to wake her. Moving closer, he brought his mouth to her ear and whispered a simple "Gomen ne."_ _With that, she whimpered slightly, shuffling slightly in her sleep. He held back a chuckle, he hoped she was having a lovely dream. That was what she deserved. _

_Gathering his scattered clothes from the floor, he moved soundlessly, freezing completely whenever she would shuffle or make a noise. Eventually, he managed to get dressed._

_Kissing her gently on the cheek once more and breathing in her vanilla scent once more, he left her room, her house and her village, returning to wherever he was meant to be._

**--**

"_You're enjoying this way too much,_

_I can tell._

_**Just wait, it'll be your turn soon**__."_

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**I hope you liked this chapter :D Remember to review 3 It makes me want to update more! lol xD Well D: Above all else, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this xD Also :D NO BURNING please :3 I know my writing sucks already xD Don't need reminders XD thankies :D **

**Oh yeah, some a spoiler for this fic cause I feel really bad for not updating and to make you want to Story update to see what happens next! xD**

**Sakura will meet real Sasuke verrrrry soon xD**


	5. Thorns

**Hiya everyone xD Its only been like, 3 days since my last update, go mee! XD I'm going to warn you before you read this chapter, this chapter may or may not be extremely boring compared to previous chapters, and may or may not be extremely more confusing than other chapters xD but I needed this chapter to make characters meet characters and make stuff happen. Otherwise this story wouldn't go anywhere and I'd leave it at chapter 3 again xD lol**

**Please read and review :D Makes me wanna write more XD Oh and for those who read my other stories, I'm planning on continuing Ethereal Reflections sometime soon, and will start adding more oneshots to CCSN xD (cba to write the full title)**

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Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 4**

**Thorns**

Swift movements of his feet danced with the swaying flowers as he leapt across the distances separating him from her in mere seconds. His movements too fast to see or notice, the only trace he had been there would be the slight rift he left in the air, and the faint smell of freshly cut grass. He had ran towards her direction as soon as he felt her anxieties. He could feel it, she was in danger. Things like sensing her anxieties, her pains, her happiness too, had all become natural to him, but he didn't want it any other way.

He was happy as long as she was safe, but he would only come to save her in rare occasions, when her life was in real danger. He felt that she was in much more danger if he was to be beside her, as he was a selfish man. He knew he would never be able to let her go, and he would suffocate her in his psychotic love, and would not be able to contain himself around her. But here she was in such a dangerous situation. He growled in annoyance at how useless the guard he created for her was. The temptation to completely replace her current protector was increasing, his desire to completely monopolize her growing day by day. The only thing preventing him from doing this, and from losing any more of his insanity, was the fear of losing her completely.

He was slowly nearing closer and closer to the cave slowing down more and more to avoid being spotted. It was a beautiful sight, a raven haired man with coal black eyes, bathed under the moonlight rushing through reeds of long blades of grass. Silently, he activated his sharingan, trying to identify the source of the danger. Just as he activated his sharingan, he immediately understood the problem. _Leaf Ninjas_.

He cursed inwardly at their stupidity, annoyed and irritated beyond all belief. _"Idiots. They're going to end up killing the one they intend to save…" _He thought to himself, eyes widening slightly as he soon realised they had no intention to rescue Sakura. His shock quickly fading, he smirked to himself and closed his eyes. _"If that's how you're gonna play Konoha…" _He thought dryly.

**--**

It was all very sudden.

The cave walls had exploded, sending sharp fragments of stone flying at the people in the cave. Shouts and war cries of unknown people, and the tormented and pained screams of prisoners that the Akatsuki had kept echoed throughout the cave and forest surrounding it. Huge turrets of flames came roaring in the cave, painting the cave walls a miserable crimson red. The cave was collapsing, and Sakura wasn't even awake yet. She felt herself be lifted on a strong back, her arms drooping and her eyelids half open. Half asleep, she didn't feel any harm coming from the vicious flames heading at her direction, and she couldn't understand the string of curses that her blonde friend was shouting.

Among the bustling panic, she felt everything slur, a dizzy and slowed motion wavering around her. It was hot… Really hot, and she found she couldn't breathe. Getting more awake and aware of her suffocation, she held tight to Deidara, and felt herself being carried towards what she hoped was an area of clean, breathable fresh air while trying her best to deal with the pain of her burning lungs. He body was aching, her lungs burning, her vision going white at the lack of oxygen.

It felt like ages had passed until she could breathe, but it was all worth it to feel the soothing cold air in her body again. Much more sober than a moment ago, her head rose as she looked at her surroundings. She was still on Deidara's back, but they were still running through what seemed like forests. Her whole body was numb, so she could do nothing but remain on his back as they fled.

Moments and moments went by, Deidara not uttering a word. She longed to hear someone's voice, she felt so dreary and her throat was dry. But she didn't dare say anything as Deidara was concentrating seriously, but she couldn't help but feel like everything was a dream.

Slowly, her body went limp again as she drifted back to sleep. Deidara noticed this, and after just a few more moments, he slowed down, and turned his head to look at the sleeping kunoichi. Still running, he headed towards a waterfall, where he would finally be able to rest, not sensing anymore leaf ninja's chakra around him. He was worried about the giant turrets of flame that had attacked them in their sleep, how they could of gotten that type of power for such normal ninja.

He had been running for about half an hour, the time had gone quickly, but nevertheless, every second counted. He didn't know where the other Akatsuki members went, they were all separated. The strange thing was that he couldn't care less about them, he was only worried about Sakura.

Looking forward, he saw with his gentle blue eyes, a low waterfall. It was quite pretty, still bathed in the moonlight, the silver water sparkling and flowing into the small lake of water, the only thing breaking the silence. He stepped slowly towards a nearby tuft of grass, and lay Sakura gently down, smiling lovingly as she murmured in her sleep. He sat there next to her, imagining the impossible. He imagined her smiling back to him, but in his home town with his sister, in a beautiful mansion decorated with flowers. He imagined himself if he were out of Akatsuki, he wouldn't have to fight anymore, and Sakura wouldn't have any other objection for not being with him. He was so willing to give up everything for her, he really loved her.

Sighing, he knew none of his wishes would be granted, but a wonderful idea sparked up in his head. He slowly came closer to her, and wrapped his arm around her, bringing her closer. He held her tightly, taking in the faint scent of vanilla in her hair, and savouring the moment. Sakura woke up slowly, very drowsy and dozy, and breathed in slowly while letting him hug her closely. It was calm, and they were so distracted that they didn't notice a very dark murderous presence among them.

They sat there, in silence, their heartbeats mingling. Everything silent and peaceful, no sorrow, just calmness. Everything felt like a dream, especially when a piercing red hot pain ignited in Deidara's back through to his chest.

Deidara gasped in pain, desperately trying to unsheathe his katana from his belt after pushing Sakura out of danger. He felt himself being pushed onto the floor, a foot digging into his spine, and plunging a sword further into his back. Coughing out blood, he tried his best to get up and counter attack, but instead his arms and legs fell lifelessly. He could hear Sakura's voice, her screams screaming at the attacker. He saw in mild shock that she wasn't being hurt or attacked in any way. Relieved, he watched as she was put under a genjutsu and was caught with an arm as her body went limp. He could see her tears roll down her cheeks unseeingly, her beautiful face.

He coughed up more blood. He couldn't feel anything; the pain had long gone from him. Everything was fading, the waterfall, the trees, the moon, _her_. In a way, he was thankful that she would be partially safe, as he didn't feel any murderous intent directed at her, but felt a relieved and loving aura directed to Sakura instead. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die in front of her. He wanted to live, to have a wonderful loving life with her. He wanted to _live_. Even so, he was thankful that he could die with her mourning for him, that enough was to make him smile one last smile.

Slowly fading, his gentle blue eyes looking at the one he loved, he accepted the death that was approaching.

Seconds that felt like hours passed and he started to wonder why he wasn't dead yet.

He slowly raised his head to his attacker, eyes widening with shock and pain as he slowly recognised the man in front of him. His attacker noticed this, and held his breath before he spoke, his gaze never leaving the girl in his arms.

"Don't think I'm letting you live because I want to." A deep but elegant voice whispered deadly, the sound of his voice barely detectable against the soft sound of the water splashing down from the waterfall. Before Deidara could reply, the man continued.

"Don't think I'm letting you live because I'm letting you be with Sakura either. You're simply a tool." To this, Deidara gritted his teeth, his eyebrows furrowing as his instincts to protect his pride rose.

"You're just a tool to protect Sakura."

"A tool?" Deidara barely managed to say, blood trickling down his mouth as he fought the urge to cough.

"I thought you'd be stronger than this. I let you be with her, to be my replacement for a while in protecting her." The raven haired man said casually, tucking a lock of pink coral hair behind the sleeping girl's left ear, and bringing her closer into his arms, breathing her scent in deeply.

"W...What the hell..." Deidara started, not even caring about his wounds anymore.

"I'll take care of her for the time being. Get stronger. Strong enough to protect her. That's the only reason I'm letting you live, because you love her. Not as much as I do, but enough to never betray her and sacrifice your life for her. You can choose to tell people about this, but regardless if you do or not... If at the next time you and Sakura meet, you fail to protect her..." The man paused before he spoke, closing his eyes and clenching his fists.

"If you don't die while protecting her... I'll kill you." His eyes opened suddenly, revealing beautiful but fearsome crimson eyes, watching the blonde before him lose his consciousness.

Minutes after the blond lost consciousness, the Uchiha sighed, seriously worried about what he should do about protecting her now that his first plan had failed. _'It would be a real pain the ass if she saw me in reality too soon, I would never be able to let her go.'_ He chuckled at that thought. _'I really should have been more patient I guess...'_ He thought, but instantly took back the thought of regret. He knew he shouldn't risk her safety, he'd be the one upset if she was hurt, no one else.

He smiled helplessly, admitting defeat to the beautiful girl in his arms. He caressed her face gently, his eyes scanning her entire body for any injuries. His chest tightened as he saw her injured arm, muttering under his breath how he would make the person who did this to her live through a living hell. Summoning his chakra gently and slowly, trying not to use too much so his chakra would become noticeable, a soft glowing green aura illuminating her skin.

As she was waking up, she saw a faint soft green glow around her, making her feel light headed and dizzy. She couldn't feel any pain in her left arm, and felt herself be surrounded by a comfortable warmth. Her eyes half drooping, she just stared at the green glow, until she noticed a pair of familiar onyx eyes looking into her own. He noticed her waking up, and hesitated before making a decision. But before he could start, she interrupted with a question.

"Did I die?" She asked innocently, completely serious as she looked at the Uchiha. It took a few seconds to grasp what she had just asked him, he was anticipating more of a, "Who the heck are you!?" or "Why did you leave me that night?" or worse, "Why did you come again?". After he got to grips with reality, a deep chuckle escaped his lips, laughing at her whack judgement of the situation. He thought he'd be more of a demon than an angel from heaven, but he didn't mind as long as she was thinking about him. Chuckling, he guessed he must have been really serious, since the longer he delayed with laughter, the more Sakura seemed to be worried.

"Koishii, you aren't dead." He told her, his voiced laced with amusement, a sadistic grin never leaving his face. But as soon as he saw her expression, the humour and grin vanished. She sat in his arms, eyes embedded with fear.

"If I'm not dead… Then who are you?" She whispered, obviously too scared to speak normally. He sighed with frustration, all amusement gone. He looked at her sombrely, then closed his eyes. With this, he could feel her body freeze. She probably guessed he was going to try to kill her, or at least cast another genjutsu on her. At this, he couldn't stop himself from feeling a little hurt, but he guessed it couldn't be helped. To her, he was an enemy and a dangerous one at that. He guessed that was how Sakura felt when having to talk to other people from her village. He smirked inwardly, '_I'll just have to make her sure that I'm not an enemy then_.'

He opened his eyes again, revealing the same sombre beautiful but cold ebony eyes that she had seen on that night a few months ago. Blinking, she gazed at him, unsure whether to do a hit and run or to stay until he clarified things. If he was really an Uchiha, she would have to capture him.

Glaring at the Uchiha, her eyes wandered further away, beyond his shoulder and she saw a blonde heap on the ground next to the waterfall.

"Sakura." He started, with that same deep mellow voice. '_It really was this man..._' She thought, her attention gathered. "Some things... Are better left unknown." He finished simply. She frowned, and let out a tantrum.

She pushed him away and flung herself backwards while sending several kunai at him. He recovered quickly and deflected all the kunai. How, Sakura didn't know. She had missed it all within a blink of an eye.

Blinking again, she saw him disappear, she couldn't sense his chakra at all and if he didn't have that dangerous aura around him all the time, she would have let it pass as him retreating. But she knew better, she needed to find him soon, before he attacks her. Before she acted at all, she swiftly moved Deidara away and placed him gently next to the silver waterfall. She then returned to her original location, not wanting to risk his life in any fighting she may have to do.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on scanning the area trying to sense any chakra, then as she failed she immediately switched to trying to sense the sound of a heartbeat. Opening her eyes with shock and gathering an immense amount of chakra into her right fist, a sickening crack opening up the earth rung in her ears, dust entering her eyes and throat. Ready to try to deflect any counterattack her opponent could do, she leapt from the mass of rubble, landing on a nearby pine tree. She held her breath, her body shaking from a sudden overdose of adrenaline. Instead of seeing a mauled buried half-dead body among the rubble, she saw nothing. Perhaps he really _did_ retreat.

Her shoulders laxed as she sighed with relief, but she realized she made a fatal mistake as she realized an arm was around her waist, and a kunai at her neck.

The man behind her sighed, saying something like "I guess you really did forget me, huh..." whilst withdrawing the hand with the kunai in it. "I guess it can't be helped... Since I was the one who erased your memories of me..." He continued, but she dismissed whatever he said as something he was rambling on about to try to confuse her. And it was working.

She was about to question him further, before she heard him form seals with amazing speed, she was bewildered as he only needed one hand to form them. Gaping at her inactivity, she realised she had pretty much let this man attack her like a sitting duck. She gathered chakra in her elbow and was about smash his chest into pieces when the man caught her elbow swiftly, chuckling at her impatience. As he tightened the grip on her elbow, she felt her strength weakening and the world around her swirling. She felt her knees buckle and her eyes droop slightly, but to her surprise, she was caught and held by two strong arms before she could fall from the tree.

She wanted to struggle, but her body betrayed her, everything but her head fell limp as he continued to absorb her chakra. She felt herself be cradled tightly, her face resting at the crook of his neck. He smelt really really nice, like the scent of fields, and a really crisp fresh smell... Maybe it was aftershave? She ushered those thoughts away though, as she reminded herself again that he was an enemy. A sarcastic part of her that was trying to replace her ghost of a friend argued that she couldn't do anything right now, and she may as well ogle at the hot guy in front of her. She rolled her eyes in disgust at her own thoughts, and attempted to move her arms and legs. Not even being able to lift them, she lost hope, and waited for something to happen.

"Gomen ne, I won't let you run away from me again." He said as he gazed at her, not blinking or changing where he was looking at. At his heated stare, Sakura could feel herself blush tomato red, realizing that this man had even seen her naked, and that she had slept with him. She directed her sight to something else, something really unimportant, and tried to think of thoughts that would have nothing to do with the man in front of her. It didn't work for long though, but it didn't have to. He immediately started racing through trees with Sakura in his arms, carrying her bridal style, speeding away to a place that Sakura hoped would be able to escape from.

"I drained the chakra from your body, and also any energy that you may have left." He started, as if trying to initialize a conversation. "We're in the Country of Earth right now, but we're going to relocate somewhere else."

She wanted to ask 'where?' and she wanted to ask 'why?'. Taking one swift glance at her, he paused before an amused grin formed on his face.

"I'm not gonna tell you where, that would be just stupid." He chuckled, "And to explain why... Well... Like I said earlier, some things are better left unknown."

If Sakura could huff, she would have, instead she let herself be carried off through the endless mass of trees.

**--**

"_Hey." She randomly whispered in an ANBU meeting for the next mission she would be forced to take. She was returned with a nonchalant 'Hn' and felt familiar loving arms wrap around her waist. The ANBU sitting next to her probably heard her, as they looked towards her direction, returning to paying attention to the mission briefer once again after she didn't reply for a few moments. _

"_You said I might be able to see you one day." She spoke softly to herself, causing the ANBU to look at her. They probably were looking at her weirdly, but she couldn't see underneath their masks anyway. She could feel the man behind her chest's tighten before he answered. _

"_You should concentrate more on the mission briefing rather than me." 'Changing the subject obviously' she thought sarcasticly. She pouted in response._

"_Stop changing the subject. You know I could care less." She scowled a bit too loud to be unnoticed. This earned her a "...Miss Haruno? You have a probl- I mean question?" from the briefer and an amused chuckle from the man behind her. She ignored the briefer and sent 'evil mind waves' that she hoped would hit him in some way. It might have worked, since she heard him sigh into her ear, causing her to shudder at the warmth that she craved. His arms slipped down from her waist. Hugging her and holding her arms together so she wouldn't be able to respond, he put his head into the crook of her neck and rested it there. She knew what he meant, and he meant for her to listen, she was so used to their silent language of their body and gestures, it amazed herself how she could understand such an enigma. _

_Closing her eyes in response, letting him know she understood, she leaned slightly backwards into his warm chest. _

"_If you ever see me, I hope you'll run away. I'm not a good person." He said simply, as if it were a matter-of-fact thing. She wanted to ask "How will I know it will be you?" but it was still his turn to speak._

"_If you ever see me, I won't let you know it's me till the very end. Plus, unless you really do remember me completely, you probably won't ever see me." He ended, and disappeared into thin air._

_She sighed, annoyed at his usual mysterious choice of words, but brushed it aside when she was handed a scroll by a nervous blonde Hokage. She left as soon as she got the scroll, the sight of the Hokage quivering at her feet pissing her off deeply. She wanted to ignore the words that _he_ had spoken to her, but for some reason like every other thing he said, the words stuck in her mind repeating themselves over and over. Arriving at her house, his words like a broken record driving her nuts, she quickly stripped down in her bedroom and entered her bathroom. She was about to enter her shower room when she saw an ivory, white fully bloomed rose resting in front of her vanity mirror. She reached for it and cringed in pain. She withdrew her fingers and raised them to her eye level. She 'tched' at the fresh cuts, sighing as she remembered that roses have thorns. _

_She carefully picked the white rose up, taking it to her bedroom and leaving it at her study table, eyes wondering in amazement as she noticed a small concealed piece of paper camouflaged as a petal. Gently placing the rose down, it took her quite a lot of effort to get the concealed piece of paper without pricking herself anymore. _

_Finally getting the paper out, she unfolded the paper and saw it was a note. Reading the message, her eyes widened as the message sunk in. She placed the paper onto the table, her mouth agape. She immediately turned to start her long forgotten shower, trying to forget and ignore what she had just read. _

_The luke-warm water came pouring down in tumbles, causing her to shudder in contrast to her icy skin. Cupping her hands and trying to collect water, she splashed it against her face, trying to get herself to wake up. She wasn't thinking properly, and it was no surprise why. _

_After a while, she got out of the shower, got dressed and grabbed her rucksack. She filled it with various weapons, a few medic scrolls and satchel of soldier pills. Her mission this time was to go to the Lightning Country, to either marry or spy on the Raikage. She didn't need the extra stress. As she passed her study table, she glanced once more at the note, furrowed her eyebrows once more and crushed the note into a small paper ball, throwing it into a dustbin while exiting her room but she missed her target. _

_She didn't know when she was going to return, but she didn't really have much sentimental care for the village anymore. It had nothing she wanted to keep in it. She didn't even want to take this stupid mission, but she was just too lucky to be the only remaining person that would be capable of taking it. If she didn't, the guilt of letting a war occur would have haunted her, not that she would of cared if Konoha went down in ruins anyway. All she meant to Konoha was a pretty good and violent tool, and all Konoha meant to her was her salary and enough to eat._

_She sighed, knowing she was getting way too worked up again. It's not like she was seeing anyone anyway, which was pretty much the whole reason they asked her. Biting her lip, she thought back to the note again. She was not one to take advice, but the words that _he_ said to her, and the words that the letter had had written on it haunted her. _

_Making her way to the village gates where she would have to meet her fellow ANBU team members, she could of sworn she sensed a dark lurking shadow following her. It disappeared though as she left her house, so she quickly forgot about it._

_As soon as she arrived at the gates of Konoha, she got one more basic debriefing, and then departing for the country of lightning. _

_Completely out of sensing range, the dark presence that she had felt earlier, smirked as it entered her house. The shadow turned out to be a man, with raven hair and dark black locks. _

_He sniggered as he saw his crumpled letter on her bedroom floor, smeared with a faint fingerprint of blood. He uncrumpled the paper and reread what he had written. Chuckling slightly, he guessed he had been a tad sadistic with his message._

_『__Koishii_

_A word of warning_

_Every rose has its thorns_

_Even the most beautiful ones._

_If you don't start a war fuelled by Konoha's betrayal_

_I'll start it for you._

_Sending my love, you should know who this is from.__』_

_After reading it to himself slowly, he decided to crumple it up again and burned it with a small push of burning chakra. His face expressionless, he made his way back to the gates to see that his target was already miles away. He disguised himself again, blending in with the shadows, bracing himself for a long and tedious journey._

**--**

Sakura couldn't remember what a field looked like. They had been running through endless miles of forest and trees, much faster than she could probably ever run. She wanted to run away, but it was obvious from his speed and her current condition she wouldn't be able to pull a hit and run off. She wondered about Deidara, she hoped he was found by other Akatsuki members so he could be safe. Then she realized she was hoping that another one of her enemies would be safe. '_A very kind enemy' _she argued back at herself, annoyed at her sudden decision to argue with herself over nothing.

She raised her head and decided to try to annoy the person carrying her. Her first idea was to ask him loads of questions and bug him, it seemed to work with any other guy. This plan seemed to backfire, annoying her more than it annoyed him.

"Ne, ne. Whats your name?" She had asked innocently?

"Hmm? My name? My name shouldn't be of importance to you yet." He smirked, "What about you? I'm more interested in you."

"Haruno Sakura. Now tell me your name!" She grumbled annoyingly, well aware this man knew what her name was already.

"Heh, that's a pretty name. It really suits you. What's your favourite colour?" He continued, changing the subject entirely, his eyes not moving an inch as he sped through the forests. It was quite insulting actually, the guy who she had slept once with not even looking at her while he asked her personal things.

"Blue." She said through gritted teeth, glaring at him. He turned to her, his face showing mock surprise, smirking at her. She blushed at the sudden attention, before making an angry face.

"What?" She asked grouchily.

"Nothing, I just thought your favourite colour would have been red."

"Why's that?" He paused before he answered.

"…No reason." She lifted her eyebrows in suspicion. She would of interrogated him further but he silenced her with a cold glare. It wasn't much a glare though, more of a sad stare that she could imagine her non-existant friend would make. It was the sort of look that said "Please Sakura… Don't ask anymore."

She took her eyes off him and tried to define their current location again, but giving up after she saw more endless trees. Suddenly, it dawned on her.

"Who was the one who blew the Akatsuki hideout up?" She asked seriously.

"...Me."

"...Why?"

Suddenly, he stopped, earning a curious stare from her. He simply said "Gomen ne Sakura. I have to put you under genjutsu. Can't have you seeing where I'm taking you."

Her eyes widened as the trees suddenly turned into her house, and a mirror appearing in front of her. She looked in horror as she saw herself as a younger teenage girl clad in red again, probably around 13. She heard a voice calling, feminine but stern.

"Sakura? Sakura! Wake up Sakura!" A familiar voice called out, her voice echoing in Sakura's ears. '_Crap. Just what I need.'_ She thought, then turning around as she saw that same man clad in a black cloak. He seemed to be smiling to himself, his eyes shut and completely oblivious to her death glare.

Turning around, Sakura walked outside of her room, walking down the stairs to her living room slowly. The next sight made her want to cry.

Her mother was standing in front of her, hands on her hips with an angry expression on her face. Her dad was sitting under the kotatsu, eating a simple breakfast of fried eggs and bacon whilst reading the daily newspaper, not even going to try to get involved with the two feminine member's rows.

Sakura stood there, mouth slightly open, understanding completely the intentions of this genjutsu, or at least she thought she did. Her mother ignored her unknown surprise and continued to lecture her.

"Mou... Sakura. You told me to wake you up today extra early today! When I tried you threw several pillows at me! Next time even if you DO have a dat- I mean have to meet up with _____-kun I won't bother waking you up!" She huffed out, going back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

She felt nauseous, the last thing she needed right now were the warm images of her parents. She heard a deep chuckle from behind her, and saw the cloaked Uchiha.

"Having fun yet Koishii?" He asked, his eyes gleaming with amusement. Before she could answer, her mother interrupted and she was forced to look away.

"Oi. Sakura. Hurry up and eat, your crush might miss you if you're late." Her mother told her, ushering her to the Kotatsu. Sakura turned around once more, and saw that he was gone.

Eating her fake breakfast rushedly, she rushed out the house to where she guessed she was supposed to meet her supposed "crush". She couldn't recall ever having any interest in guys at this age, nor at any other. Even so, anything was better than confronting her dead parents all over again.

She ended up going to the training grounds where she had became a genin, but that was all she could remember about that place. She couldn't remember at all _how_ she became a genin. Behind her she heard that arrogant voice again, but this one was much colder and less deep.

She turned around ready to scowl at the black cloaked man, but instead she was surprised by a younger raven haired boy and a blonde boy. The blonde boy she guessed was Naruto. She looked away in disgust at the future Hokage, hating his false affection more than anything else. Looking at the raven haired boy clad in blue, she couldn't quite remember him. She definitely knew she knew him, but she couldn't remember him at all. It definitely didn't help when Naruto tried to annoy them both.

"Oi oi! _____-teme! Stop going near my beloved Sakura-chan!" he bellowed, pouting as the other guy elbowed him on the head whilst calling him an idiot, an obviously annoyed and bored expression on his face. Sakura glared at him, taking a cautious stance. Said person noticed this and raised his eyebrows with curiosity.

"Who the heck are you?" She asked. Apparantly she had asked something really strange since the expressions on both of their faces were dumbstruck. In fact, it felt like they thought she grew another head.

"I'm serious. Who the heck are you." She repeated, clutching her fist tightly ready to draw chakra. They looked at her, and both looked somewhat worried.

"Sakura-chan... What's wrong? It's ______-teme, why wouldn't he be?" Naruto stated, extremely worried for his favourite pink haired kunoichi.

"What the hell Naruto, I've never seen him before in my life." She replied, earning two wide eyed faces. She saw Naruto's gaze direct at the dark haired boy, then at her again.

"Sakura." The normal dark voice spoke again, but the voice didn't come from the boy in front of her. In fact, the boys in front of her seemed to have frozen in place.

She turned around, and saw the man again wearing that annoying smirk. She tried to gather chakra into her fist, but found it useless, no chakra came. Not being able to do anything special, she attempted to land a clean punch onto his face, her strength shouldn't be so weak that she can't punch hard enough without chakra. The man easily caught it, grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer to him and crushing her against his chest.

"Sakura."

"Why the hell did you put me in such a confusing fucking genjutsu!? Who the fucking heck ARE you!?" She shouted, her temper taking over her common sense to try to stay alive. He looked at her coldly, sending chills through her spine.

"I already told you Sakura. A long long time ago. I'm not a good person. Every rose has it's thorns. I won't tell you who I am until you can finally remember my name." He said softly, letting go of her slowly, and taking a step away from her trying to let her realise.

As he let her go, she looked up and saw the man in front of her hold a white rose. Her eyes widened, and he could have sworn there was a tear.

"Gomen ne... Koishii."

**--**

He watched her fall unconscious, and immediately continued his journey. He didn't want to keep her in genjutsu for too long, he didn't want her to remember too much of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shed a tear. He only stopped completely when in his horror and shock, she had whispered in a sigh something that he never expected her to come out of her mouth. Not this soon anyway.

"_Sasuke-kun..."_

**--**

"_Do you know how hard it is?_

_Not to run towards you and steal you away,_

_To stop being your knight in shining armour, _

_And almost instantly become the masked villain?_

_This is for your own good, __**princess**__."_

* * *

**I really hope you liked this chapter XD Even though I doubt it, since it was probably really boring and confusing, but keep reading D: I'll make it get better ;~; somehow xD**

**Remember :D Review pleasee 3 They make me wanna update faster lol xD Oh and no flames please =D**


	6. A Twisted Knight In Shining Armour

**I'll tell you now, this was unbelievably painful to write roflmao :'D I dragged on too much with tons of stuff, and then went really vague with other parts. I hope you still like this chapter anyway xD Sorry the update is so late btw, I had exams xD Which I think I failed roflmao! Pray for me T.T Also, I've planned the rest of this story completely, and so there is 100% guarantee this story will be finished. The whole story will have 9 (actually 10 including the prologue) chapters in total, and then there will be a seperate story sequal, which you don't have to read if you don't want to xD Since it will end up ItaSakuSasu xD**

**Read and review guys! Oh and if you want, read my other stories 3 I've been writing a lot of ItaSaku lately lol xD**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 5**

**A Twisted Knight In Shining Armour**

_He smiled at her, rain trickling down the side of his face, dripping off from his chin and landing on one of her closed eyelids. Gazing at her, he healed her more fatal injuries like that painful looking gash in her stomach. As he healed her, the rain seemed to be washing some of the blood away from her, but only increased the area of blood stains across her shirt. After he had finished, no one would probably be able to tell she was ever injured. _

_Slowly, he placed the hand that wasn't holding her around the waist onto her forehead, and shoved his overpowering chakra into her head. Watching her sombrely as he erased all memories of him that she had, he kept reassuring himself that it was for the best. _

_Exhaling sadly, he removed his hand from her forehead, the jutsu done. Forming seals with only one hand, he gathered his chakra to form a ghost image of him. Giving him instructions to stay with Sakura, only to be visible by Sakura too, he inhaled the ghost image and gathered more chakra in his chest, infusing his chakra with the ghost to make it real and sort of living. He raised Sakura's head and locked his own lips with hers, breathing out the ghost image into her, the second stage of the jutsu complete._

_Catching his lost breath again, his heart rate finally calmed down from the sudden lack of oxygen. He placed his hands on where her heart was, where the ghost image would reside until he decided to get rid of it, and summoned more of his chakra into her heart, sending a few last instructions and abilities to his image._

_He sighed with relief, happy that she would now be safe, and caressed her cheek softly, gazing at her peaceful sleeping face as the rain pattered down on them. Leaning for one last chaste kiss before he left her, he shuddered at the warmth of her lips._

_His jutsu would definitely keep her safe, it would be able to contact him and share Sakura's emotions and memories with him, allowing him to come whenever trouble would fall upon her. What's more, if needed, the image would be able to heal her slowly if she is gravely injured, and if she was hurt fatally where she would die, the image could give its own chakra infused life up to save her. _

_Assuring himself once more, he told himself that she would be safe, and that he could come to her in only minutes if she was in trouble, but the thought that 'only minutes' could be all it took for her to be fatally injured._

_Scolding himself once more for thinking so negatively, he placed his now free arm under her knees and stood up slowly, not wanting to wake her up from her peaceful slumber._

_Standing, he could see her teammates lying next to her, but he wasn't at all interested in them, helping them would not benefit either of them in the slightest. All he cared about was her._

_Turning around, he headed towards Konoha's gates._

_Reaching there in only seconds, it took the two chuunin who stood guard there a few moments to realise that Uchiha Sasuke was carrying Haruno Sakura, and he was trying to enter the village. Before they could even move to attack, Sasuke disappeared and reappeared behind them, causing them to tremble in fear slightly at his unknown power._

"_Look after her, or I'll kill you all and destroy this village. Take my word for it Konoha ninja, if she gets hurt the slightest or is unhappy in anyway, I'll kill you all." He said simply, laying her down on the floor under a tree to make sure she wouldn't catch a cold, his gaze never leaving her._

_The chuunins, Kotetsu and Izumo just watched in fear, not knowing whether they should attack such a dangerous man or to retreat. _

_They were answered with a quick glare from the Uchiha's famous sharingan, who then disappeared into thin air, leaving two gobsmacked chuunin behind in the rain._

Her eyes fluttering open, she finally opened her eyes. She couldn't see much but darkness so she wondered what the time was.

* * *

Still half asleep, she stared at what she thought was the ceiling in front of her for a few moments before realising her captor was sleeping beside her. Trying to get up, she struggled as she felt strong arms around her, and warm breath that tickled her neck. Struggling to get away from the raven haired man sleeping beside her, she tried to wiggle out of his arms, only to be brought closer to him. She sighed, and gave up trying again, watching as the man encaging her smiled without opening his eyes.

She narrowed her eyes, knowing he was awake. But even though he was awake and they both knew she knew he was awake, he had no intention of getting up yet. He hugged her tightly, pulling her closer towards his body. She blushed as she was only inches away from the man's handsome face, blushing even more as she felt against her body that he had no shirt on. Never before had she been so thankful that it was so dark, thankful he probably wouldn't be able to see her scarlet blush.

Suddenly, she realised that she wasn't wearing her normal ninja clothes, and struggled even more against him. He sighed, knowing the peaceful moment wouldn't come back again, and opened his eyes.

"What the hell did you do to me!?" She said, hoping she wasn't blushing. He sighed again in response, getting up slightly but falling on top of her as he nuzzled against her neck, still not wanting to get up.

"Oi! Wake up! What did you do to me!?" She shouted, on the verge of angry tears. Grumbling he burrowed his face deeper into the crook of her neck.

"Nothing, you had blood stained clothes on so I gave you mine, you could have had an infection or something. Plus, you would of stained the bed." He said simply, body relaxing once again as if expecting her to calm down since he answered it. He was proved wrong.

"Let me go!" She said as she thrashed about. Groaning, he started to get annoyed by her constant resistance. He rose above her and looked at her seriously.

"Sakura." He said dangerously, all humour taken out of his voice. She looked timidly at him as he straddled her, dark onyx eyes clashing with emerald.

"Don't worry. I have every intention of sending you back to Konoha soon. You don't have to panic so much." He said, getting up and out of the bed, wading through the thick duvet leaving a nervous Sakura sitting there.

He turned around once more, letting her have one last view of his onyx gaze before she fell asleep again.

"Go back to sleep Sakura, it's only midnight and you have wounds. I've already blocked and drained your chakra, so you can't fight me," He paused, watching her eyes sparkle in the darkness with unshed tears of fear and sighed slightly, "Even if you did have your chakra, I'm sure you're smart enough not to try to attack me, since I _am_ going to send you back to Konoha once you healed. Don't worry, I'll try to avoid you as much as possible until then, and I hope you will do likewise." He finished, turning around and leaving the room before Sakura could ask him anything.

Sakura huffed, annoyed at his stuck up attitude.

One minute he's as affectionate as a new born puppy, the next he's as cold as the winter's midnight breeze, not even looking at her as he spoke to her. Sighing deeply, she let herself fall back onto the bed, looking again at the dark ceiling. Murmuring to herself, she asked to no one in particular, "Who are you..?"

Not expecting to be answered, she sat back up, and almost jumped in fright as she felt familiar arms wrap themselves around her.

She sat there wordlessly for what felt like ages, leaning slightly into the warmth of his body, the warmth of his breath tickling her ear every time he breathed in and out.

"_Sakura." _Her visitor said softly, making said person's heart beat faster, "_It's been a while_."

She gulped slowly, swallowing her previous anxieties and fears. "Where have you been?" She said in an almost inaudible whisper. In reply, her visitor hugged her tighter, but not too tight to be out of her comfort.

"_Hm? What are you talking about? I've been with you all this time, haven't you noticed?" _He said, his voice deepening with every syllable he pronounced, until it reached the point when it almost matched her captor's identically.

Sakura was shocked by this, and wanted so desperately to find out who he was, and who _he_ was. Yet again, not learning her lessons from countless times before, she turned around.

Blinking back the tears that had unconsciously welled up, she looked down into the darkness, feeling extremely lonely again. She wasn't yet used to the feeling, and she hated it so much, but unfortunately whenever he would leave her, the feeling would come back and pierce her.

Still wanting to cry, she hugged herself. She shivered slightly, still shaken from her fears and frustrations. Slowly, warm arms encaged her again, but she could sense that it wasn't the visitor she wanted.

Not moving, she let her captor behind her reach for her hands, and shuddered from his warmth, suddenly realising her hands were freezing cold. He slowly entwined his hands with her own, his thumb stroking and massaging it as he sighed contentedly.

"Sakura." He breathed into her ear, rubbing his cheek against the side of her neck. Sakura heard his voice, and realised really how similar their voices were to each other.

"I thought I told you to go to sleep." He looked at her, watching her every movement. He hadn't intended on coming back in, but he could sense her uncertainties and her worries, and could even tell that she wanted to cry. Sighing, he pulled her down into the bed and wrapped an arm on top of and around her waist, the other arm serving as Sakura's potential pillow.

"I-I can't sleep." She stuttered, confused at his actions.

"Why?" He asked.

"…"

She thought before she answered. She didn't want to tell this man that she was scared of him, he might get angry and **really** give her a reason to be scared. She was scared, and she knew exactly why. It had nothing to do with the fact that this man could kill her at any second, after what had happened with her parents she wasn't so scared of death anymore. It wasn't because he was holding her, embracing her and hugging her. It was because she felt so safe in his arms, and she felt so comfortable in them.

She didn't understand what was happening to her.

Sure, she slept with him once, but that shouldn't have made her totally at ease in his arms. She was scared, that soon, she wouldn't be able to resist or fight against him at all. She didn't even know who he was, yet he could make her completely placid in his arms. She was scared that soon, she would want to stay here instead of going back to Konoha, where her home was.

She shivered again from her thoughts and urges, but her captor didn't seem to know that. Instead, he thought she was cold, and brought her even closer to him, holding her tightly as her shivering increased.

They stayed like that peacefully for a while since Sakura wasn't counting the time. During that time, neither of them moved an inch, the only sound being made were each other's shallow breathing. After only a few minutes of him holding her, she had already succumbed, leaning back slightly into his arms. In fact, if she hadn't fallen asleep about 5 minutes later, she would have probably have done the unforgivable thing and wrapped her arms around his own.

Watching her doze off, he too fell asleep against his will, smiling helplessly in the arms of the woman he loved.

* * *

Wincing at the sudden burst of light attacking her, she grumbled drowsily as she sluggishly woke up. Sleepily, she glared at the man standing in front of curtains that she hadn't noticed before, growling slightly as he walked slightly out of the way so more light could hit her. He stood there hands on his hips, smirking at her as the sun blinded her.

"Ohayou." He said softly, his voice completely tranquil. Sakura just groaned in response, her mind not awake yet and not remembering the fact she had been captured. Instead of screaming and roaring like she would have normally of done, she pulled the duvet over her head and dug under her pillow, wanting to go back to sleep.

Lightly chuckling at her antics, he walked closer towards her and pulled away the duvet, earning screeches of protest. Chuckling again, he kissed her on her cheek lovingly, before tucking her back into the bed, watching her relax as she drifted back to sleep.

Pulling himself away from her, he knelt down and got out a pad of paper from a nearby drawer. Jotting down a few instructions, he ripped out the page and folded it, placing the folded paper in her clenched hand.

Looking at her one last time before he set out for the day, he stood up and exited the room.

* * *

Waking up again an hour later, she found she was alone in the room. Standing up groggily, she felt something in her right hand. Unclenching her hand, her fist revealed a piece of paper. She took it and unfolded it, and tried to read it.

Since she was still groggy from her sleep, it took her a while to get her bearings.

Sighing, she read the note aloud.

_『__Koishii,_

_I want you to stay at home at rest. Well, my room. _

_I'll be back shortly so don't worry._

_Don't go outside._

_If you do, I'll be really angry with you._

_Like I said, you don't want to run away from me,_

_I'm taking you back to Konoha soon anyway._

_Sending my love, I'll see you soon.__』_

She looked at the letter he left for her, and compared it to the memory of the one _he_ gave her long ago. Sighing, she couldn't and didn't want to even try to think about how similar they were to each other.

Her eyes narrowed as she read the note, especially when he told her not to worry.

"As if I'd worry about him at all!" She muttered to herself, "And as if I'm going to try to run away, but I'm definitely not staying in this room for the whole day. He can bite my ass."

Getting up, only staggering when the pain in her knees came back to her, she limped towards the window, looking out of it and seeing endless amounts of blue sky and fluffy clouds she limped kind of towards what she thought was the door. Grabbing what she thought was her own wallet, she also attached her shuriken holster onto her leg since she never knew when she may get attacked again.

She walked outside the door and climbed down the stairs painfully, her knees stinging.

By the time she reached downstairs, she was already getting used to the pain. She was sure that would be the worst of the pain she would get from her knees and she almost managed to walk without limping.

Walking down the stairs, she opened another door which when she opened, a sweet autumn breeze charged at her, letting her clearly know that she was outside. Smiling happily at the sight of the blue sky and the feel of air swirling around her, she giggled happily. Her expression immediately turned into a grouchy frown as she saw more endless spirals of stairs.

Not being patient enough to stick with the stairs though, she guessed it wouldn't be such a difference in levels of pain if she tried jumping from where she was to the ground.

All set for that idea, she walked slowly to a banister, and hoisted herself up, jumping off with confidence.

She grinned widely like a cat as the world whirled around her, the long snakes of metal encircling her as she flew down to the ground. Unfortunately, her landing wasn't like a cat, and she ended up crash landing in a tree.

Groaning, she got up painfully, aware that her knee was probably even worse than it was 5 minutes ago, but thankful she saved hours of her life from climbing stairs. Slowly climbing out of the tree, she took a whole 14 minutes to get down safely, her bad knee hindering her.

After a while of wandering in the direction where she heard the most people around, she managed to get over the pain in her knee and walk normally. Looking around for any signs of her captor, she guessed it wouldn't hurt to have a few drinks before she went back up those painful looking stairs.

Trying to find a nearby pub which didn't look like it had disgusting looking men, which was pretty hard since most of the pubs where she was were filled to the brim with fat pot bellied men, she smiled happily as she finally found one which looked decent.

Entering the pub, she smiled at the nostalgic smell of sake and cider, remembering all the times when her now-dead shisshou had drunk together. Back then, somehow most of her other memories around that time were fuzzy, she couldn't even remember why or how she had come to become the fifth hokage's apprentice. But it didn't matter now, she was who she was. Sakura didn't believe in lingering in the past, she lived for today only, as shown by many people around her, life was too short.

She looked around the pub and saw nothing too fancy, just the usual typical pub-like décor that she was used to.

A karaoke song player in the corner flashing annoying flashy neon lights and playing an annoying sappy love song from like the 70's, illuminating the checkered brown wallpaper a neon green.

Walking over to some brown coloured corner sofa, she crossed her legs and immediately relaxed, thankful for a place to rest her painful knees. A guy came over her and asked her what she would like to drink, so she just replied "The strongest thing you have." For some reason the waiter (A/N…Do they have waiters in pubs? XD) nodded, almost as if he understood exactly why she wanted one. As he turned back around, she let her eyes follow him until her eyes reached other employees of the pub, who in turn were all staring at her with mixed expressions.

Some were surprised, there were some even frightened, and some of them were even whispering about her. More of the women workers were probably saying nasty things judging by the way they gave a distasteful look at her whenever they thought she wasn't looking. The rest that didn't look surprised or pissed off looked a bit sympathetic even, making Sakura feel extremely self conscious.

Looking around, she noticed a lot more than just the employees were staring at her, the majority of the pub were looking at her as if she were either an alien or a well-known assassin, which she kind of was. The strangest thing was that some of the poorer ones looked at her as if she were some kind of messiah.

Trying to shrug it off, she sighed in relief as the same guy came back with a glass bottle filled with what she hoped was really strong sake and a cup. Filling her sake cup, she downed the first cup quickly, and instantly felt the alcohol reach her head. But, as soon as she downed it, she also felt slightly dizzy and nauseous, and it wasn't due to the alcohol.

Her hearing intensified by whatever drug she had been given, she heard pounding footsteps coming towards her, and heard a painful smack as she felt cold hands slap her across the face.

With her reaction slowed and her mind at complete and utter confusion, all she could do was turn her head slowly at her attacker and glare at the red headed woman standing in front of her, who was glaring just as hard back. The woman stunk of cheap perfume, and her thick glasses hid her eyes, which were probably really small anyway. Sakura could tell that the woman was a cheap one, bite marks marred across her skin, the very fact this woman wore an extremely revealing tank top which showed all those bite marks was enough to make Sakura laugh until she fell to the floor, but she was too drunk and dizzy to do anything but glare at the woman in front of her.

"The fuck are you?" Sakura hissed, her hands clenched into a fist, her drunken state tempting her to punch the living daylights out of this bitch.

"Who the fuck am I? You ask?" The woman started, her voice laced with spite and sarcasm, "Why, why ever would such a celebrity like you ever want to know MY name? Miss Haruno _Saki_ or whatever."

"Sakura." She corrected, her fists clenching even harder, her nails digging into her skin, "If you want to use my name with your butt-ugly face, say it properly bitch." She smirked as she could see a fuzzy scowl appearing on the woman's face and an animal-like growl pounding in her ear drums.

"Well, Miss _Sakura_," The red-head started, "My name is Karin, and unlike you, I'm not a slut like you are, seducing _my_ Sasuke-kun into your bed." Sakura's eyes narrowed at this, and inhaled sharply as she felt a burst of pain in her head.

"What the hell are you talking about _Karin?_ Who the fuck is Sasuke, and I'm not a slut."

"Pfft, tell that to all the people in this village who he told to be courteous to you, and tell that to them all who told them not to mention his name to you."

"The hell are you talking abo-" She stopped midway to suddenly cough painfully, her head killing her and the world around her swirling with the same neon lights from the karaoke song player.

"Heh, seems like the drug I added to your drink is taking its toll on you. You'll be out like a light soon, and then the real effects of the drug will surface, and show people what a real slut you ar- AERCHH"

She was interrupted in her words by a strong fist choking her and strangling her neck.

A man, the man who captured her, was glaring at the floor with blood red eyes, the intent to kill etched within his very breath. His voice coming out as a deadly whisper, Sakura's hearing and sight left her as she entered the world of dreams. The people inside the pub had all gone silent, all of them waiting for what Sasuke would do, and what would happen to Karin.

"S-Sasuke-kun…" Karin said, her weak and flimsy hands reaching up to his hand and trying to detach herself from him.

"What did you do?" He said quietly, his voice wavering slightly as he fought the rage led impulses to kill this woman right then and there.

"S-Sasuke-kun… P-please… Let go…" She attempted, her voice coming out in choked squeaks.

"I won't repeat myself Karin… Answer my question if you want to live." He said angrily between gritted teeth, but to anyone apart from Karin, it was obvious he had no intention of letting her live.

"I…I only d-drugged her… Only t-told her what she r-really was here for…" She said, not daring to insult Sakura directly, especially when she was barely standing on the tightrope of death.

"And what was that?" He asked, his eyes meeting hers and sending shivers throughout her body.

"T-That she w-was just a whore… T-that you were just using…" She said, wincing through her glasses as the man in front of her stayed still. Until suddenly the grip on her neck tightened, and she coughed out blood.

Wringing her neck like a chicken's, he then slammed her against a wall and threw her down like the trash she was, knowing she was already dead. Releasing her neck finally, he walked towards Sakura and picked her up bridal style, kissing her forehead softly.

He glanced at the owner of the pub slightly who had come out of the staff room when the two women started to argue, and the owner nodded understandingly. The owner gestured to two men in ruffian style outfits, and they picked up the dead corpse, and exited the bar through the back way, and everyone present knew they would never see Karin again, not that they liked her to start with.

Still angry, the Uchiha walked outside slowly, before disappearing into thin air.

Annoyed, he made his way to his apartment, and took in the complete events from his ghostly jutsu, understanding almost exactly what happened. He already knew that something bad had happened, his instincts and contacting jutsu urging him to run to the pub as he felt a shock through his spine. He didn't know what had happened, but all he had known was that it included Sakura, and that was enough for him to rush to her rescue.

He had to say he was pretty happy though that she had been sort of jealous about him, but the feeling was ruined at the reminding fact that Karin had blabbed his name. Now she'd have a great headache for the next couple of hours, his jutsu slowly eating away her memories of Karin mentioning him in front of her.

Arriving at his apartment almost as soon as he left, he set Sakura down onto the bed and put his hand on her forehead. Cringing inwardly and cursing Karin, he could tell straight away that she had a temperature. Whatever drug Karin had given her, it was extremely strong for such a small dose.

Analyzing the situation again, he sighed as he knew he'd have to do some more patchwork in his jutsu, each time his identity was revealed was the risk of Sakura remembering him way before he wanted her too, and each time she did hear it, the jutsu was designed to lull her unconscious.

Only 5 minutes later and Sakura's temperature had already went down, Sasuke thanking Tsunade that she had taught her to be a medic nin for her faster natural regenerative benefits. He took that back though as he saw her wake up slowly, her eyes blurry and her throat dry.

She tried to sit up slowly, but found herself being pushed down gently, and a hand being pressed against her forehead. It felt nice to have his cold hands pressing against her boiling skin since her body went back to feeling uncomfortably hot again.

Her eyes blurry still and her head pounding, she tried to and failed to focus on the man in front of her, and groaned slightly as the heat increased again.

"Ughhh…" She moaned.

"Do you want water?" He asked worriedly, ironic how a man who just killed a woman in a few seconds and tossed her away like dirt could 5 minutes later act so compassionate to another. All he got as a response was a slight nod. Going to where the kitchen was located in his apartment, he found a glass and filled it with water, and took out a pack of pain killers.

Returning back to her side, he placed the pain killers and water down, and gently sat her up so she wouldn't choke.

"Take these, it'll make the most of the pain go away." He said gently, bringing 2 tablets up to her and tipping the water from the glass into her mouth.

Sipping the water slowly, she swallowed the tablets and immediately felt better with her dry throat problem sorted. But after that problem, there were many more.

Narrowing her eyes, she spoke.

"Why did you help me?" She said, trying to make her voice sound as serious and intimidating as possible, but failed as her bearings still hadn't come back to her yet and her voice wavering as she tried to pronounce her d's properly. In return, the man just frowned as he rested her down onto the bed again.

"You don't need to know." He said, avoiding her gaze by staring at her shoulder.

"Hmph, if you aren't going to tell me anything, don't help me." She said, her words slurring as they both knew she didn't mean anything that she said. But the next thing she said caught his attention.

"…Did you sleep with that bitch Karin as well?" She asked grouchily, she didn't care if she sounded jealous, but Sasuke did. He looked at her, and what was close to a cheerful grin appeared onto his mouth. Sakura couldn't see it though, the images around her kept swaying.

"Why? Are you jealous Sakura?" He asked playfully, her name rolling off his tongue beautifully, sending shivers to Sakura's body. All Sakura did was roll her head away from him, closing her eyes and creasing her eyebrows in annoyance. His smile just grew wider in response.

"Ii yo, I have never slept with anyone apart from you." He said as he placed a hand on her shoulder, which was a big mistake.

As soon as he touched her, he felt her start to tremble, and watched as scarlet rushed to her cheeks, colouring them a bright reddish pinkish colour. At the same time, she opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.

He shuddered slightly from her concentrated stare, he didn't know what the look in her eye represented at all. But he found out eventually as she got up slowly, leaning closer towards him.

Leaning dangerously close to his face, she didn't know what was happening to her. As soon as he had touched her skin again, she felt unbelievably hot and flushed in her body, and found herself urging for something she didn't know of. She looked at him, and somehow she knew he had whatever she wanted.

She leaned even closer, placing her small hands on top of his yukata, before slipping between the folds and tracing his ribs with her fingers. Before her victim could react and try to push her away, she pressed her lithe body against his own, leaning even closer to him to the right of him past his face. She ran her hands down to his abdominal muscles, and nibbled gently on his ear lobe. Taking in a sharp breath through gritted teeth, he cursed under his breath.

"S-Sakura… W-What are you doing…" He said between pants, stuttering and stumbling on his words whenever Sakura licked the back of his ear. Placing her hand on top of one of his, which were supporting their weight as he unconsciously leaned back as far as possible away from her, she retreated back, but only so far to meet his lustful gaze.

"You don't want this?" She said, her voice sweet and especially alluring. Sasuke groaned in response, he knew if this carried on much longer he would lose control again, and this time he wouldn't even try to let her go again. Turning away from her, trying to focus on the window, he almost hissed out the next sentence.

"Sakura… Stop… Neither of us want this, I'm warning you koishii, I won't hold back if you keep tempting me." He said. Sakura's gaze never left him even though his had, and they stayed still.

A smile suddenly appeared on Sakura's face, a smile not genuinely happy or completely sarcastic, a smile that a predator would give to its prey as they knew that they had won. She moved her hand up towards his chest and viciously tugged on his yukata opening, pulling it off of him and earning a dangerous glare from Sasuke.

She was annoyed at him, and he was annoyed at her, this was her stupid simple-minded revenge against him. Serves him right for acting so cruel and cold at one moment whilst so loving in another. Serves him right for hanging around sluts who made her angry, and serves him right for keeping her in some place whilst not even telling her anything.

Still smiling but still drunk, she said cruelly, "Who said I don't want this?" before pressing her lips against his.

And as soon as she had, he surprised her by crushing her down onto the bed, pinning her down onto the bed and kissing her passionately. She didn't know what was going on with her, but like his own, her mind had completely gone blank, and all common sense had left her.

Brushing her hands across his body towards his shoulder, he parted their lips for a brief moment to groan seductively, before kissing her even harder as she tried to pull his yukata off of him. When she found she couldn't, Sasuke helped her, his rougher hands enveloping her own, helping her pull off his garment. After that, he lifted himself up from her, and leaned down again at her neck, sucking and nibbling the hollow section of her neck. Whimpering as he nibbled at her skin, she tangled her fingers through his silken hair, tugging on it slightly whenever he bit into her harder than usual.

With his hands slipping under her shirt he explored her body, taking in and memorizing every reaction and part of her that made her gasp and moan with pleasure, his self control completely left him. He had no intention of letting her go now, not now, not ever, and he would show her that, thoroughly.

* * *

"_Who… Who are you?" She asked, her voice quivering from her earlier mourning. She had just woken up and been told her parents had been brutally murdered, and all she could was hold her tears until she was left alone, or when she thought she was alone. The man behind her just put his hands on the sides of her shoulders gently, understanding somehow what pain she was going through. When he didn't answer, she asked again, scared and unable to move, somehow sensing the massive load of chakra this man had, or was._

"_Who are you?" This time, he leaned in towards her, resting his cheek slightly on the top of her head, bringing his arms around her front and pulling her towards him into a hug._

"_A friend." He whispered, his voice deep and silken, his embrace gentle like his voice. Sakura didn't believe him though, and she didn't even know who this man was, and turned around. _

_As soon as she did the man disappeared, but the warmth that he had lingered on her skin where he had touched her, and his two words resonated in her head over and over. Turning back around, she looked down to the thin white blankets, tempted to cry again. The room was unlit, the nurse turned it off when she had left Sakura, expected her to go to sleep. Sighing, she wondered dismally what she would do now. She didn't want to fight anymore. Somehow, after her parents were gone, there nothing worth fighting for anymore, nothing left to protect._

_Lost in her thoughts, it took her a few seconds to realise that he had come back again, his arms wrapped comfortingly around her, his chin resting at the crook of her neck. She could feel his vibrant warmth again, his breath caressing her ear. She was lost, so lost and confused. She didn't even know what to do anymore. _

_Finally, tears rolled down her cheeks, and they wouldn't stop. Her silent crying turned into soft whimpers then into hysteric wailing. As she cried, all he did was rub away her tears with his thumb, his knuckles pressed flat against her cheek softly, not interrupting her painful suffering with respect. _

_After a while, her cries turned into silent streaming tears once again, as she breathed heavily._

"_What should I do now?" She asked, knowing he was listening. She didn't even intend to listen to what he would say, she didn't even care if he even bothered to listen to her. All she knew was that if he was going to stay with her and not let her cry alone, she'd bring him into this fully._

"_No one else matters." He answered simply. She wanted to turn around again, but she guessed that he'd disappear again, so she stayed still thinking. _

"_Naruto was the last one who was with your parents." He added, causing Sakura's eyes to widen with shock. _

"_How do you know this?" She asked bewilderedly. This man knew too much that he wasn't supposed to know. She waited there in silence, waiting for his answer. Unfortunately, his answer wasn't what she was looking for. _

"_I know a lot of things koishii." He answered almost inaudibly, his breath brushing the side of her neck. She frowned at his vagueness and struggled against his hug, not wanting to stay in his embrace any longer. The man sighed defeatedly as she struggled in his arms, letting her go only because he was worried for her well being. _

"_I told you the truth koishii, it's up to you to decide what to think of it." He said simply, and disappeared once again as she turned around again. Sighing, she took on board what he had told her. _

_She could tell that the man was trying to blame Naruto for the death of her parents, but she loved Naruto, he was her best friend. But even though she kept telling herself that Naruto wasn't the cause of her parents death, her visitor's words lingered in her head, repeating themselves over and over again, forging even more doubt in her heart._

_Tiredly, she lied back down onto her hospital bed, and stared dismally out of the window next to her. The moon was out that night but it was slightly reddish. She winced as the clouds moved away from it, bathing her with what felt like angry moonlight. The town looked almost surreal at night time, the tops of the buildings highlighted with the ethereal silvery crimson glowering over it. The light seeped through the clouds only rarely, dark red illuminated clouds were surging towards Konoha, maybe it was God mourning for her since no more tears seemed to be able to condense._

_She was staring at the clouds expressionlessly, she couldn't make herself cry anymore. She wanted to of course, but something in her heart… Something in her heart wouldn't let her. It was strange, she was the girl known for crying too much and letting her emotions engulf her in her job, but now she couldn't remember why she wanted to cry back then. She felt empty, like something was missing from her. She was trying to find or work out what she was missing, but a series of muffled knocks on the door shook her out of her reverie._

_Turning towards the door slowly with her head, she watched lifelessly as she saw blonde tresses peak through the door as it opened._

"_Sakura-chan? Are you awake?" He whispered, or tried to at least. His whispers were only slightly softer than his usual shouting. Sakura just responded with an unladylike grunt. Taking that as a yes, Naruto entered the room slowly._

_He looked ragged. His eyes had bags under his eyes, and he too like Sakura, looked like a wreck. _

"_Sakura-chan…" He started, looking at her as she turned her gaze back to the window. He was slightly glad that he couldn't see her face, the guilt would destroy him completely, "I'm… I'm so sorry…"_

_Sakura looked out the window, focusing on the blurry sparkly droplets that were gathering at the window sill. Her eyes were clouding up with tears, but at the same time she wasn't crying. She thought back to what the man had said to her, that Naruto had been the one last seen with her parents before the murder, that Naruto was the cause of their deaths. She shook her head slightly, not enough to catch Naruto's attention, but enough to shake some sense into herself. There was no way that what the man had said could be true, she thought, she didn't even know this man and he had called himself her friend, disappearing whenever she tried to look at him. Naruto cared for her, she thought, trying to reassure herself, but no matter how much she reassured herself beforehand, nothing could have prepared herself for the next blow._

"_I'm so sorry… Sakura-chan… Please… Forgive me…" He started, looking down onto the floor whilst biting his lip, his body shaking from the sorrow and anger that surged through his body as he reran the memories in his head. Sakura turned to him, rubbing her eyes slightly to dry the spare tears, and looked at him confusedly._

"_What's wrong Naruto? You didn't do anything." She said, her words disguising her heartless voice, her body void of any emotions at the moment._

"_That's exactly it! I didn't do anything!"_

"…"

"_I…"_

"…_What's wrong? You're acting weirdly…"_

"_I was the last known person with your parents before they were killed, only a few moments before they were killed." He said finally, his voice laced with nervousness and worry, his anxiety and fears scrawled all over his face. Sakura just looked at him, looked into his eyes. Her face showed a lot of things. Anger. Sadness. Pain. Betrayal. Hatred._

_All of the reassuring and facts about their friendship could not stop her anger, the only thing in her mind now was the fact that Naruto could of but didn't save her parents. Reasoning left her, her common sense flew away, and her compassion abandoned her. _

_Suddenly, she looked at him sharply with a strong glare that broke his heart, and she sent a deadly whisper to him saying, "Get out."_

_Naruto understood her emotions, but he couldn't stand there and let himself lose one of his friends, even if it WAS his fault. Refusing to move, he stepped forward slightly, his blue orbs screaming desperation and begging for forgiveness, "Sakura… Please…"_

"_**GET OUT YOU FUCKING MONSTER."**_

_She had almost screamed those words at him, and she had a whole 5 blissful seconds before she had finally realised what she had said, and the look that Naruto gave her broke her heart. She was about to apologise, expecting him to keep trying to stay with her, to keep their friendship still intact, but instead, he turned to leave._

"_Fine. I won't bother you anymore." He whispered, really and truly whispered it and left the room, leaving Sakura behind._

"_I told you so…" The man's voice appeared again, his voice smooth and crisp, but she didn't hear him. He leant down to her and hugged her from behind, trying his best to console her. All she did was stare down in front of her at the bed sheets again, her anger increasing by every second._

_She tried again, to reassure herself that it wasn't his fault, and that she was the one who had gone overboard with her words, but she wasn't convinced. He had left her. He had left her parents to die. She thought she had meant something so much more to him than just this, but apparently she was wrong._

"_Koishii…" He said again, this time she heard him. She felt herself suddenly sleepy, and let herself lean unconsciously into his warm body. Staring at the wall lifelessly, she let him bury his face into her neck again, and waited for him to continue._

"_No one matters but you." He said, and immediately she understood everything._

_No one but her would matter, she would live for herself and herself only. To her, her friends were her life, but her friends obviously didn't feel the same way. Why should she risk her lives for them anymore, when they can't even be bothered to fight for their friendship. Why should she care for them, when they couldn't be bothered to visit her in hospital. Why should she train to protect them, when all the aimed to protect were their material goods. Enough was enough._

_From then on, she would work for her own sake only, She'd live her life selfishly, free from their binding fake friendship and care. She would sever all ties between them, and live life how she wanted to. _

_And from then on, she became the strong uncaring kunoichi she is today._

* * *

Still asleep, she nuzzled against his bare neck unconsciously, not realizing what was real and what was still a dream.

Opening her eyes, she saw his dark onyx eyes watching her peacefully and a slight smile that somehow made her feel extremely light-headed. He gently withdrew his arm that was on top of her waist, holding her down as they slept peacefully, and placed the palm of his hand on her cheek, his hand touching her so lightly, it was as if he thought she might break under his touch.

"Ohayou, Koishii." He said happily, beaming like a kid who was just given a giant multicoloured lollipop. She looked at him sleepily in response, grumbling as she cuddled towards him, burrowing into his chest making him chuckle at her cute sleeping instincts. He wrapped his arms around her once again and pulled her even closer to him, knowing that their peaceful moment would be shattered soon.

And just as he expected it to be, it did.

As soon as the drowsiness wore off, her eyes widened with shock and confusion. Struggling against his embrace, she tried to wriggle out of his arms, blushing as she remembered that they were both naked.

"Let me go!" She said, preparing herself to argue in the process. Instead of obediently obeying her command, he did what she also expected and held her even tighter. But instead of letting her get away with her protests, he pulled her up to sit up, then pushed her down onto her back onto the bed, earning shrieks of anger.

"Let me go!" She shouted as he quickly unwrapped his arms from her, and pinned her wrists to the bed.

He leaned down to her, and smirked sadistically into her ear.

"I don't think so Koishii. You're mine now." He said triumphantly, pulling himself back up, grinning even more as he saw her reaction. All the colour had left her face, and she had stopped struggling. Her lips were parted with shock, and it made him really want to kiss her.

"W-What do you mean? I-I thought you were going to take me back!" She stuttered, terrified. All the while Sasuke was staring at her naked body.

"Don't blame me Koishii," He said, leaning back down and resting his body on hers, his mouth back at her neck making her nervous, "You're the one who pushed me over my limits. I can't hold myself back anymore. I was planning on sending you back, but you didn't listen to my warnings. You're mine now." After he finished speaking, he pressed his lips on hers, kissing her passionately.

Only pulling away after they both ran out of breath, he whispered on her lips breathlessly, her eyes drooping from all of the shock.

"I'll warn you now Koishii. If you even dare try to run away, I won't be very happy. And if you **do** manage to run away, I'll kill and destroy all those who get in my way." He said sinisterly, enjoying watching her shudder under him at his words.

Wordlessly, he put his right hand on her forehead gently, and shoved chakra into her, forcing her unconscious and sending her back to dream land once again.

"Sweet dreams koishii." He said, before kissing her on the forehead gently.

* * *

"_I warned you didn't I? Koishii_

_You never did listen to me, did you._

_But it doesn't matter now,_

_You're __**mine.**_

_And you always will be mine._

_**If not, no one else can have you.**__"_

* * *

**I hope the chapter wasn't too dark or anything or vague/boring D: I promise it'll get better ;~; *has a plan* xD **

**REVIEW PEOPLE!**

**Also, there will be tons of DeiSaku (of course, there will still be tons of SasuSaku next chapter too but the main highlight is DeiSaku to bring up the SasuSaku if you get what I mean xD) next chapter! Look forward to it!**

**REVIEW PEOPLE! And don't forget to read my other stories if you are interested :D**

**See you soon xD Love you all ! *would do the heart emote but it ends up as a lil 3 sign xD***


	7. Her Momentary Sweetheart

**A much shorter chapter than what I first thought it would be, but I still like this chapter. lol. Go DeiSaku! Enjoy the happy DeiSaku while it lasts! **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, I enjoyed writing it XD roflmao, oh and just to clarify, Sakura never ever actually slept with Deidara. roflmao. Also, I'm going to be writing a DeiSaku Oneshot soon, so if you keep checking it might just randomly pop up on my profile :'D**

**Read and review people, I appreciate feedback, and maybe even improvements. **

**Enjoy =D**

**One last note : I realised a few chapters ago, Sakura spends the majority of this story unconscious or asleep. This is either because 1. Im always sleepy and lazy, and never want to wake up roflmao, or 2. Cause of all the flashbacks I have to do to make this story make sense (which is what I planned, cause I like writing things confusededly xD)**

**But to be honest, its mainly because of reason one roflmao. **

**Don't worry though, soon she will be extremely active! Well, maybe not. **

* * *

Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 6**

**Her Momentary Sweetheart**

_Her content sigh was muffled by something warm and soft, something that was holding her to the bed where she was sleeping and something that was tickling her ear with each breath it took. Her eyes heaved themselves open, only to see in the dim lighting the same man that she had tea with yesterday, cradling her in his arms and breathing in her vanilla scented hair. Watching her, he tucked a loose pink lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled calmly with glittering pale blue jewels. Still half asleep, the weights on her eyelids finally took over, and she let herself become pliant once again in his embrace. _

_Breathing in, she could smell the faint scent of aftershave and… grass? The scent was intoxicating, not overpowering but hugely addicting, just like the warmth that she felt when he touched her. _

_Suddenly, her eyes fluttered open. She stared back at him and met his gaze with shocked eyes, and immediately tried to pull back and separate them from each other. Deidara noticed this and chuckled lightly as she rebelled against his hold, also refusing to give in. _

_After a while Sakura got tired again, and let herself lie tiredly on the bed, yet again in his arms. Neither of them had spoken during their mini skirmish, and they both probably wouldn't start until the other one started. _

_Instead of talking, they communicated through an exchange of glances, the first to speak would lose in their mindsets. Even though it was technically a silent conversation, it was more of a negotiation through body language. _

_Sakura would glare at him with stubborn eyes, threatening to let her go or else she'll make sure he'll never have children, nor the joy of making them ever again. Deidara instead of threatening was coaxing her gently to relax and give up, a confident smirk teasing her and telling her she can't win. Soon enough, Sakura was growling through gritted teeth, refusing to give into his negotiations. Deidara just sighed in response, then smirked evilly._

_Randomly, he withdrew one of his arms from around her waist that was keeping her pulled towards him, and Sakura tried to take this chance to escape. Unfortunately, she didn't see the full intentions of her opponent and totally missed the dark glint that appeared in Deidara's eyes._

_The hand on the same arm that unwrapped from around Sakura's waist moved towards her cheek and brought her to face him, and immediately as she opened her mouth to rebel, his mouth came crashing down on hers, totally muffling any screams of protest she had. _

_It took a few moments for the fact he was actually kissing her to sink in, but only a few seconds for her to succumb to the unwanted pleasure. Her body becoming totally lax as he continued to kiss her, only separating when they needed to breathe, she brought her arms up to tangle her hands into his blonde hair. Pulling it whenever he nibbled on her lip or touched her tongue with his own, he groaned against her at the pure pleasure. Withdrawing slightly, he aimed for her neck, kissing it and nibbling on her skin, smirking inwardly in victory as he heard her whimper._

_Just as he was about to start reaching for under her shirt, she realised what was happening to her, and what she was doing. She instantly sobered up and pushed his wrists away from her. This earned her a shocked glance from him, but all he did was push that shock away, and tried to continue. He froze though when she said a shaky, "Stop… Please…"_

_Looking into her eyes, his expression saddened for a split second before he put on a neutral looking face in an attempt to pretend he wasn't upset at all. But she saw the look on his face, and for some weird uncontrollable reason, she felt like she had been stabbed in the chest._

"_Mah, let's go to sleep for a bit more." He said before yawning, and pulled her down to cradle her as he went back to sleep. _

_She wanted to retort back and escape, and was about to even push him away using her chakra, but she noticed she couldn't summon up any of her chakra at all. She glared at him as she watched him smirk as he closed his eyes. Calculating whether or not she would be able to get free from him without him unlocking her chakra, she guessed that she probably wouldn't have gotten very far anyway. _

_Sighing, she turned around so that he was facing her back. If she was going to give in to his wishes, she would do it her way, not the way he wanted her to. Smiling triumphantly as she heard muffled muttering, she found a position on her pillow and tried to go to sleep._

_Just as she was about to fall asleep only about five minutes later, she felt herself be nudged back into consciousness as she felt herself being pulled back into something much warmer than just the blankets. Too tired and lethargic to argue, she dismissed the idea of trying to break free of whatever hold she was in and went back to trying to sleep, totally ignoring the fact that the blonde behind her was burying his face into her neck. She couldn't deny it feeling good, but to be honest, she couldn't really feel anything at that time apart from comfort as she slowly drifted to sleep._

**--**

Sasuke withdrew his hand from her forehead having finished making one last check that Sakura had no chakra and would stay unconscious for at least a day. Aware she may feel cold without him with him, he had placed one of his yukata's on her and placed some extra duvets on top.

Caressing her cheek and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear as she slept, he kissed her on the forehead once more and whispered a hushed goodbye.

He turned to leave to the door, and gave her one last glance. Just in case she would wake up before he came back from a trip to Konoha, he had written a short note telling her that he'd be going to Konoha to get some of her stuff.

Writing it made him somewhat doubt his decision that he had made in the previous night, but he was a man and he couldn't go back on his words. She had tempted him too far, to him, he had every right to keep her here. Of course he wouldn't cage her though, he would treasure her and make sure she became happy. He was the only one who knew how to make her smile, the only one who could make her squeal with joy. It had always been that way and always will be.

Blowing her a kiss from the door, he chuckled at himself acting like a love sick puppy. He was definitely sure we was acting like one, but he didn't really mind it, if anything, he was proud to be one. He loved her, and that was all that mattered. And with that, he closed the door.

**--**

_Only an hour later, Sakura found herself being gently shaken awake by her pillow, who annoyingly finally decided to get up as soon as Sakura found she wanted to sleep more. Wanting to growl at him, he just pulled her out of bed and threw a kimono at her, telling her to go into the bathroom in the hotel room to go change, and then come out when she had dressed. She raised an eyebrow to this and the question of where he got the dress from, but all he said was that there was a festival. She wanted to say why, but all he replied was, "Why not? You're not my enemy right now and probably never will be," he smirked, "Plus, I thought you were the one who had a mission to get information about me. If you treat me nice koishii, I'll give you all the information you want."_

_Sighing as she felt herself get pushed and shoved into the bathroom, she decided she should take this chance to learn more about her mission's target. Not like she hadn't done so already though. Locking the bathroom door she started to get ready, not knowing whether or not she should trust the man in the opposite room enough to not peek on her. And luckily for her, he didn't try._

_Soon after, she emerged out from the bathroom door with the kimono that Deidara had given her to wear worn on her. Deidara's head shot up from looking at his feet to the bathroom door as soon as he heard a soft click. His eyes widened with amazement as she walked out of it towards him._

_He had given her his mothers old kimono that he had kept in an item summoning scroll for old-keep sakes, but until now, he had never noticed how beautiful the dress made the person wearing it look. But as soon as he saw Sakura in it, he crossed that idea out completely, and was sure that Sakura was the one making the dress look beautiful. _

_The kimono hugged all of Sakura's soft and subtle curves, the pale green shades of cloth matching her jade eyes and bringing out the colour of her hair even more, which lay suspended in a single hair clip in a messy bun. On the obi of the kimono, there were sparkling emerald and onyx beads embedded into the white fabric in the pattern of flowers. _

_Watching her in amazement for a few moments made her uneasy, and even more uneasy as on his awed face a frown formed. He creased his eyebrows slightly at the sight of her obi not being tied properly, which he could obviously understand since it was a two piece obi, one that was meant for someone to help tie it. He was more upset about the fact she didn't ask him for help. He knew it was probably because she may have been too embarrassed or because of a matter of distrust, but in the end she wouldn't be able to avoid it. Smirking darkly, he guessed he would take the chance now._

_He got up from sitting on the bed and walked over to her, watching her eyebrows rise in curiosity. She almost screamed as he came from behind her and put his arms around her in a mischievous way, pretending to aim for her obi but she knew he was obviously using it for an excuse to tease her in unfair ways. _

"_Hmm, next time you should totally ask me for help with your obi… Un." He said cheekily, touching her in places that he knew would make her feel ticklish or would even make her jump. Sakura just huffed, trying her best not to let him know that wherever he was touching bothered her that much._

"_Shut up, you can do my obi without putting your arms over me y'know." She said, but they both knew they were enjoying the teasing. _

_Finally done tying her obi, he smirked triumphantly with pride as he placed his hands on his hips. Sakura took this opportunity to increase the distance between them, not wanting to wait until he cages her again with his arms. _

_Trudging back to reality, she couldn't hold back her curiosity back anymore. But before she would try to interrogate him, she needed to ask something much more important first._

"_When will you give me my chakra back?" She asked, her face stern and serious. His grin faded slightly, and he looked away slightly to the floor._

"_When I want to." He said expressionlessly, his voice completely flat and void of any humour. He shook his head slightly as she was about to interrogate further and walked closer towards her, closing the distance that she had just made between them. He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers with her own, and literally dragged her out of the hotel room, grabbing his wallet and the hotel room keys on the way out and only turning back to lock the door._

**--**

Finally returning home after 2 days of constant travelling, he was surprised to say the least that Sakura was still fast asleep, not having moved an inch from where he had last left her. Smiling at her gently, he reached out for her cheek, but stopped midway. He didn't know why he stopped, but he could probably guess it was because he still didn't, **couldn't** believe that she was his now. He was so scared, so scared that if he touched her, her image would shatter into a thousand pieces and leave him again. He knew he was stupid for thinking so, but he couldn't help but think it would happen, his own image shattering in front of her countless times before. He could have even said it would be a taste of his own medicine,

Inhaling deeply, he finally gathered the courage to finally touch her cheek, and when he did, he finally knew how relieved he was, and how lost he was without her. Streams of adrenaline mixed with joy rushed through his veins, the relief he felt when she didn't disappear in front of him made him feel so happy, and he could bet that when finally woke up (he wouldn't wake her) and accepted the fact that she was his, he would feel even better.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to find out whether or not that would actually happen any time soon. He had to leave almost immediately after he had returned so he could make it in time to arrive in the country of lightning, of whom he would form an alliance with. He was serious when he said he would destroy Konoha. He wasn't forming this alliance with lightning though because he needed them, he was going to use them and then crush them, for revenge for them demanding a marriage with Sakura. He wasn't one to forget grudges.

Finding his last note that he left her, he picked it up and scrunched it up, burning it with his fiery chakra. He got another piece of paper and wrote another quick note to explain that he was forming a treaty of some sort with another country, he would be stupid to tell Sakura his plans if he wanted to gain her trust again.

Checking once more that her chakra was sealed properly, he hid the item summoning scroll he made that contained all of Sakura's items under a tatami mat and once again, left to discuss the plans for war against Konoha with the Raikage.

**--**

_They were walking through the festival stalls, well, more like Deidara dragging Sakura along. All throughout the hours that they had been there, Sakura had tried to ask questions, and Deidara almost actually seemed like he was going to answer them. Before he got sidetracked by something else like a water gun game booth or a catch the fish with a paper hoop game. _

_They had already been to tons of game booths, all of which Deidara won to try to show off to Sakura, but she clearly wasn't interested nor impressed, all of the game stalls were easy and they were no hard feat to win. Nevertheless, Deidara had been able to win Sakura a beaded flower hair clip that had several beaded ribbons hanging from the centre. He was pretty happy when he won it, since he knew he could use it as an excuse to hold her again to put the clip into her hair. Sakura just glared at him as he did, trying to make every excuse to make him NOT try to put the clip in her hair, even though she kind of did want the clip. He just laughed and told her, "What, you think I'm gonna wear this? …Un."_

_After walking from stalls to stalls, Sakura found herself losing track of reality and started to actually enjoy herself in his company. Of course, the night had consisted of Deidara pulling her along from stall to stall and trying to show off, but really, his personality was almost impossible to dislike. She started to wonder, what would have happened if she had met this man in different circumstances, instead of being enemies. Uncertain, she shoved that idea away before it became dangerous, and found herself being handed a stick of dango. Surprised, she looked at her date surprisedly, who looked almost just as surprised. _

"_Whats up un? You're spacing out." He asked with what Sakura could almost call concern. _

"_None of your business." She replied back, taking a bite out of the first dumpling on her dango stick. Deidara just smirked at this, and instead asked the time. Sakura looked at him confusedly, and looked at her watch. It read 9:30pm._

"_9:30, why?" She asked curiously._

"_Ahh! We're going to miss it un!" He grabbed her wrist yet again, and started rushing off to some hill._

"_Oi, Aijin! Where are you taking me?" She panted out, running with clogs and a kimono on was never her strong point._

"_Hurry! We'll miss it! Un!" He shouted after her, running as fast as he could with him still dragging her behind, which was actually much slower than usual. He was tempted to even carry her to the hill, knowing that running in clogs and a huge and heavy dress isn't the easiest to run in._

_Doing just that, he halted for a second to catch Sakura off guard, and chuckled as she started shrieking when he picked her up bridal style, thrashing in his arms like a chicken thrashing in the air._

_Suddenly, he darted to the hills where he wanted to get to, and looked at his victim with a gentle smile, amused by how she was completely silent as she clung hard onto him. 'No wonder she put up such a fight, she must be terrified of heights or something… Un,' He thought. Setting her down carefully, his smile didn't go anywhere as she didn't stop clinging onto him until she was sure she was set down onto the actual ground. _

_When she finally let him go, he took her by the hand and led her to a higher spot on the hill, where he reserved a place so that they could get the best view. _

"_The best view of what?" Sakura asked._

"_Heh, you'll see soon un…" His eyes looked like they were almost sparkling with excitement as he turned to her._

"_Huh?" She let out, confused as always._

_An awkward silence suddenly came as they waited for whatever Deidara was waiting for, and Sakura wanted to take advantage of this._

"_Aijin-chan, who are you really?" She asked hopefully. This time she was sure she would be able to get a direct answer, there were no game booths around them or anything to distract them, and there was nothing else to do while waiting for the 'best view'._

_Unfortunately for her, the 'best view' came with a loud bang as she finished her sentence, and Deidara's eyes almost lit up._

"_SUGOI! Fireworks! Ne ne Sakura-chan, let's go over to that hill and watch them un!" He said cheerfully, grabbing her hand and entwining his fingers with her own, and dragging her towards a hill. He went too fast though, much too fast for a girl wearing clogs and a heavy kimono to keep up with, and they tumbled down on each other with him laughing and giggling as they fell. Deidara opened his eyes to see himself straddling Sakura's hips, and he was pretty happy to be in this position. _

_Sakura on the other hand, when she found herself in this position, got angry at the fact he kept avoiding he question._

"_Hey! Stop changing the-" She couldn't finish the sentence, she was bewildered at the fireworks that she saw over his shoulder. He smiled at her, and hugged her affectionately, like _he_ would normally do. Somehow, he just knew she would love the fireworks, just like he did. To him, they were another way of expressing art, and he could say that they were almost as beautiful as she was as he could see the flowering embers reflected in her eyes. He dug his face into her neck, and took in a deep breath. She smelt like vanilla, and he was so tempted to find out if her skin tasted of vanilla too. _

_He was about to find out before she pushed him away, yelling at him for being a pervert __**again**__. He cried out in pain and whimpered almost sexily about how mean she was to neglect an injured person. But he regretted his words as soon as he had said them, as he knew what she would retort back with, and he had no excuse now to pretend to forget about her question like he had been doing all night._

"_You still haven't told me who you are."_

"_Koishii. There are some things better to leave hidden, for your own good." He spoke softly but gravely, while staring directly into her eyes. He didn't want to, he __**couldn't**__ tell her who he was, if she knew, she would be targeted by many people, she could even be betrayed by the people she loved. He refused to put her through that pain. It didn't matter if she hated him in the end, so long as she was safe. He was a criminal anyway, she shouldn't have to be dragged down with him. _

_He looked down into her eyes, mesmerized by the depth of them, and somehow, he knew she was too. Suddenly, he had a huge urge to kiss her, to make sure that those eyes were only on him as he made love to her slowly. As much as he fought it, he found himself moving closer to her, and didn't even notice until a few moments later that he was kissing her._

_And that was when he swore never to let her get hurt, ever._

**--**

Sakura awoke to the blinding afternoon sun glaring at her. Groggily, she got up and noticed as a huge yukata as well as the duvet that covered her slipped off. She was obviously naked, and she cringed as she remembered why.

Yet again, she had slept with him, but this time he had told her that he would keep her and never let her go. So where was he now? She looked around, and realised that there a note on her pillow, right next to where she had been sleeping.

_『__Koishii,_

_I've gone to form an important treaty with another country._

_I want you to stay put, but if you must, you can explore the village._

_Don't go to anywhere shady or suspicious, and no bars!_

_I'll be back soon, don't try to run away, I'll be able to find you easily anyway._

_I've also kept your chakra sealed, and no one can unseal it apart from me, just so that you won't run away from me_

_I love you koishii, be safe.__』_

She read it slowly, analyzing every single word. She guessed that the past events really weren't just a dream, that she was stuck here in this random village. 'Well, at least I'm not not allowed to explore the village, so long as I don't go anywhere like last time' she thought, but immediately took that idea back. She shouldn't have to stay in this village anyway!

Slowly, she told herself to calm down. People to rescue her would come soon, people even stronger than the Uchiha she hoped. As much as she wanted to believe that, she couldn't think of many who could probably beat this man in a fight, and his promise to kill anyone who got in the way of them chilled her to the bone. Somehow, she could sense he was completely serious, and would definitely do it if that happened.

Judging from her situation, she guessed it would be best if she go along with whatever this man wanted with her until she could find a time where he would trust her and unseal her chakra, then wait until a rescue team came and help them fight him.

The only problem was, she didn't know if she could fight against him or not. He was a total enigma, yet he could make her feel petrified with just a glance, yet filled with lust with just a simple touch. She needed to make an immunity against him, he was _poison_ to her in her mind.

Sighing, she got up and found her clothes in a neat pile. She wanted to make a cynical joke about how he was so kind as to fold her clothes for her, yet keep her in a suffocating cage for God knows how long for.

Getting dressed quickly, she looked once again out of the window blankly, not really caring for whatever was outside.

She exited the door once again, not bothering to even bring anything with her this time. She looked at the staircase again, and this time decided to walk down them since her knee felt much better, and she didn't really fancy making it worse for the sake of it.

When she finally reached the bottom of those endless stairs, she looked around a few shops. She saw nothing interesting at first, but her heart stopped as she saw a glimpse of red clouds.

At first, she wanted to scream, so she clamped her mouth shut with the help of her hand, and aimed to hide behind a building. She concentrated, and tried to feel differences in the rift of the air, since strong chakras had the power to change it slightly. It was no easy feat though, the task being much easier when one had chakra to use. Cursing a certain raven man, she started to run in the direction of where she thought the apartment was as she felt a slight change in the air pressure come closer in ripples.

Somehow, her whole body started to become heavy and hard to move, she was sure that the lack of chakra she had and the supreme amount of chakra that her stalker had was affecting it, her enemy's chakra drilling into hers and causing immobility.

Suddenly, she stopped, her feet and body no longer moving as she wished. She felt a familiar presence behind her and a cloaked arm circle around her waist, but before she could clarify who it was, she felt herself fall limp as the world darkened in front of her.

**--**

"_Koishii… You never listen to me do you..?_

_I really wish you'd listen to my warnings,_

_It'd make it so much less painful for you when that time comes._

_And when that time comes,_

_**I won't be able to hold back my anger.**__"_

* * *

**I hope you liked this chapter! Remember to review! The next chapter will have a dramatic ending! roflmao, and Sakura will be mostly awake for the next chapter (excluding the start). lol.**

**Please review, I'm a review whore and it makes me feel good about myself, so much so that it makes me wanna write faster roflmao. **

**See ya next times folks *does a lil heart emote* xD**

* * *

Fragmented Lullabyes


	8. The Increasing Guilt

****

**Anwyay =D Now that that is out of the way xD **

**READ AND REVIEW PEOPLE!**

**Oh and sorry that this chapter is kind of short, and sorry that its really badly written, my brain has gone dead 'cause it's the holidays and stuff and I have to study for my exams XD DAMN YOU GCSE MODULAR MATH! T.T**

Before you read this, please don't kill me xD I planned the event of this chapter's ending from the start, it wasn't something I did on whim. If it makes you feel better, Sasori does stuff to him. *coughs*

* * *

Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 7**

**The Increasing Guilt**

"_Sakura…" The man in front of her started, despair and worry etched into his voice, but she could only look at him with disgust and betrayal. _

"_Sakura… Listen to me… I neve-" He started, only to be stopped as a single finger was placed on his lips. _

_Her hand blocked his view of her, he knew they were both thankful of this, neither of them wanted him to see her expression._

_Instead of returning his desperation to stay together, she turned away from him and started walking, walking into a light and leaving him in the darkness._

_She could hear screams and shouts from behind her, but she ignored them and kept walking, ignoring the sharp pain in her chest as well. The shouting and screaming was becoming softer and quieter with each step she took._

_As it did, the sharp pain in her chest grew more painful as she travelled, to the point where it hurt so much she could hardly breathe._

_She fell to the ground to find there was no ground, and that she was just falling through an endless abyss. She looked back at the light that she had been going towards to, which was now speeding away from her as she pummelled into the darkness._

_Slowly, the screams and shouting became louder, and the sharp pain lessened._

_Closing her eyes, tears flowing and getting caught in the air as she fell, she felt herself decelerating and slowly floating._

_Soft, warm and large hands made contact with her skin, arms travelling to her opposite arms and cradling her. The man behind her buried his face into her neck, but somehow, she knew who it was._

_She tried to move, but she couldn't. He body wouldn't obey her._

_Her arms wouldn't move when she ordered them push this man away, her legs wouldn't move when she begged them to run._

_The man held her tightly, as if he were afraid she would disappear, too tightly for her comfort and making her flinch._

_She wanted to get out of his hold, but her body wouldn't listen. She struggled and struggled within herself, but stopped completely as she felt him tremble._

_He was shaking, and he was crying. _

_This strong psychotic man who had the power to destroy a single village in a second, possibly even more power than that, was crying and shaking like a lost child. _

"_Sakura…" His voice sounded terrified, his voice amplified by the never ending darkness that surrounded them. The sound of his teardrops were echoing, and suddenly, somehow, the tears were rolling down Sakura's cheeks as well._

"_Don't leave me koishii… Please… Don't leave me again… Please…" He cried, desperate and terrified. _

_As soon as he said the last syllable, he screamed as her legs unconsciously moved how she had begged them to only a few moments earlier. _

"_SAKURA!"_

_The tears kept pouring in, both his and her tears flooded the space._

"_SAKURA! SAKURA! DON'T GO! PLEASE! DON'T LEAVE ME!" He screamed, and she could have sworn her heart was being torn apart. She couldn't control her body, her legs kept moving forward. _

"_**SAKURA!**__"_

She woke up with a scream, only to find herself in the arms of an akatsuki. Confused and startled by her nightmare, she continued to scream, though muffled by the man's cloak.

"Hush, koishii. It's ok. It was only a nightmare… Un." Deidara comforted worriedly, holding her tightly to his chest.

It took her a while and a lot of comforting to realise that it was only a nightmare. And it took even longer for her to realise that she was in Deidara's arms.

She pushed him away in surprise, and stared at him confusedly before shivering slightly. Deidara noticed this and slowly came closer to her to bring her into a hug. This time though, she didn't push him away, she just let him hug him. He was warm, and he smelled nice. Right then, she couldn't care about anything else, all she wanted to do was sleep. She didn't know whether it was because she was absolutely exhausted, or because of the fact she felt no chakra within her.

She looked at him dazedly and blankly, and then she looked at her surroundings, screaming in terror as she drove into his chest, hugging him tightly, so tightly that she almost crushed his ribs. Deidara sighed helplessly at this, and after while chuckled light-heartedly, watching as one of the most fearsome kunoichis trembled at the fear of heights. Not that he was complaining, he was more than happy for her to hug him.

Moments passed, but neither of them spoke. Both of them didn't want to talk, so they didn't. But they both knew that they would have to sometime. So Deidara was the one to start, but he spared all greetings.

"Sakura. I'm taking you back to Konoha. Un. In fact, we're already about halfway there… Un." He said seriously, looking at her as her ears perked up at the sound of her village. She withdrew her buried face from his chest, and looked at him surprisedly, her mouth slightly hanging open.

"…Why?" She asked quietly, asking it more to herself more than him. He sighed at this, and closed his eyes before he answered, thinking of what he should say carefully.

"You're not an enemy of Akatsuki Sakura. Un. You never were. You were just part of our leaders plan to uh…" He trailed off as his eyes noticed some dark clouds approaching. As he did, he muttered some curses under his breath, and immediately held Sakura tightly, not wanting to tell her that they were going to dive to the ground and land.

"To what?" She asked, not noticing his landing plans yet.

"I'll tell you later, we need to land. Now. It's going to start raining. Un." Sakura wasn't really listening after he said I'll tell you later, so it took her a few seconds to register the fact they were going to start flying straight into the ground in about 3 seconds ago.

"WHAT! WAI-" She started, before screaming as hundreds of trees came crashing into her and Deidara.

A few moments passed, and Sakura was clinging onto Deidara for dear life, only letting go to punch him when she noticed that he was laughing at her.

**

* * *

**

Sighing with relief as he stepped into his village's borders. Stretching out a tiny bit, he smiled at the thought of spending time with Sakura, and as he sped back to his apartment he debated whether he should take her out to this really nice restaurant that he was sure she would like, or if he should take her out to the mountains where she would be able to see all the rice fields that they would live around in the future. His thought trail was stopped immediately as he found the door unlocked, and guessed that Sakura hadn't returned back into the apartment. He sighed, resisting the urge to tell himself off for letting her run around freely since he knew she would have gone anyway. 'At least,' he thought, ' At least she was excited enough to go out and explore, I guess she's finally kind of accepted her being with me after all.'

He turned around, and was about to take off before he heard a piercing scream.

"UCHIHA-SAMA!" A bearded man in around his forties approached, running towards him with as much energy as he could put in it. Sasuke looked back at him puzzledly and asked what was wrong.

"Uchiha-sama… I'm so sorry. Despite the fact you asked me specially to watch her..." The man apologised breathlessly, almost crying in his apology.

"What is it Seikatsu?" Sasuke asked worriedly, he did NOT like where this seemed to be going. The man who was apparently called Seikatsu took a deep breath and bowed in apology.

"Uchiha-sama. Sakura-sama has been abducted by a member of the Akatsuki." He said, staying bowed down for the sake of his sanity, trying his best not to look at his village leader, who was now fuming in anger and rage. Gulping deeply, he continued to describe what had happened.

"It was yesterday, since I knew you wouldn't be here until today, I told 4 jounin to track them down and have spread the word for any chuunin that is staying in the village today to tell you if they find you."

"What did he look like?" Seikatsu looked up when Sasuke said this, and shuddered slightly from fear. Sasuke was literally saying it through gritted teeth, and he could spot blood dripping from his knuckles as his nails punctured his skin. Scared now of his village leader's fury, not because Sasuke would kill him, but because he knew that he would kill _someone,_ he looked down once again.

"H-He was blonde with blue eyes, and escaped with a cl-clay bird." He stuttered, and when he heard no reply, he looked back up and saw nothing.

**

* * *

**

"Finally! Un! We're here!" Deidara shouted happily whilst stretching his arms out. He turned around excitedly, beaming at a tired Sakura, who seemed to be dragging her feet along.

"…How can you be so energetic?" She asked, glaring at the totally oblivious blonde in front of her. He looked at her blankly for a second, before smiling again.

"You get used to running a lot when you're a missing nin." Sakura ignored the almost unnoticeable hint of sadness in his words.

"…Why did you bring me back here anyway?" She asked.

"Oh, right. I'm supposed to tell you aren't I… Un." He said dazedly to himself, his mind wandering.

"Oi, hurry up and tell me Deidara." She said, stopping in her tracks refusing to move an inch until he stopped and told her. Deidara just turned around again and stopped, sighing before he spoke.

"I brought you back because I was worried about you. Un. Like I said earlier, the leader and that are fine with it, since you were never our enemy to begin with. Un." He said casually, as if it were no big thing.

"What! Then why did you attack me and kidnap me?" She demanded.

"…The Kyuubi. Un." He said simply, and that was all it needed for Sakura to understand.

She understood immediately what he was implying. They were trying to use her to lure Naruto to them, so they could take whatever was inside of him and kill him. They didn't need her for anything other than that. But now she was regarded useless seeing as how Naruto sent murderers after her instead of people to try to save her. Biting her lip, she didn't really want to return to Konoha after all.

"It's ok Sakura, un." Deidara appeared in front of her, smiling as he put a hand on her shoulder, but Sakura said nothing. Taking this as a hint, he removed his hand from her shoulder, and held her hand instead, pulling her towards her village gates.

"Go on, it'll be ok koishii. Un." He said, smiling nervously as he walked behind her slowly, gently nudging her towards the gates. Instead of walking off like he wanted her to, she turned around and pouted.

"Can't you stay..? Just for a little longer..? Please?" She asked innocently, pouting and giving him the best pair of puppy dog eyes she could make. It would of worked, if Deidara knew what would happen if he came back later than he was already.

"Sorry koishii… Sasori-danna will kick my ass and have my head if I'm even more late. I'll stay outside the gates to see that you get there safely," He grinned as he said this, "Just in case a guy comes to kidnap you during the few metres that you need to walk to the gates. Un."

Sakura huffed in response. "Shu'p." She looked down slightly before starting to speak again. "Will I ever see you again?" Deidara winced inwardly, he had been hoping she wasn't going to ask him that.

"If you do, I'll make sure you don't know it's me." He said playfully. Before she opened her mouth to retort, he cupped her cheek and covered her mouth with his.

She let him kiss her, and even started kissing back after a while. Slowly, his other arm wrapped itself around her waist, bringing her closer to him, making her gasp as he crushed her against himself.

"Deidara…" She tried, but was interrupted again as he kissed her again.

They stayed like that for what seemed like forever, and strangely enough, even though Deidara said that they might see each other again, she somehow felt like this would be the last time she would ever see him. (A/N, if you figured it out already, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME XD)

Noticing the tears rolling down her cheeks, he stopped kissing her and brought both hands to her cheeks, cupping them both and making her face him. With his thumbs, he softly wiped away her tears and brought her to a gentle hug, resting his cheek on the top of her head. Waiting for a response, he felt her shake slightly and heard her sniffling, and it wasn't long before she started crying and clinging onto him a lot. Sighing, he didn't know whether it was because she was upset about going back to Konoha, the fact she just got repeatedly kidnapped for no reason by what he thought she thought were extremely scary people, or if it was just because they wouldn't be able to be together much anymore. Guessing and hoping it was the latter, he smiled at her affection and hugged her even tighter.

"It's ok koishii. If you manage to find out it's me, maybe I'll kidnap you again. Un." He said whilst chuckling. In response, all he received was a watery and teary glare, which didn't really scare him much. In fact, if anything, it made him smile even more. That was what this woman did to him, she made him smile all the time. There never was a time when he was with her that wasn't laughing or smiling.

Looking at her, he counted how lucky he was to find her, a genuine person who genuinely returned his affection. Heck, she was even crying for him. He brought a hand up to her face again and tucked a lock of loose pink hair behind her ear, and kissed her gently on the forehead.

Trying to laugh between sniffles and hiccups, she rubbed her eyes before nodding slightly. Detaching herself from him for the last time, she walked slowly to the gates, looking back every few steps to make sure he was staying there.

Just before the gates, she looked back one more time.

And he was gone.

Turning around, she gasped as the wind was knocked out of her, her eyes widened as she felt herself be lifted off the ground by Deidara, who was in turn scowling aggressively at a familiar looking raven haired man who sat on top on one of the gate pillars.

Landing on the floor, she turned to Deidara in shock as he trembled with pain, a lightning spear impaled into his stomach.

Wordlessly, the man sitting relaxed on the pillar withdrew his lightning spear. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then reopened them to reveal blood red sharingan. In his gaze, Sakura knew that there was something directed at Deidara that wasn't directed at her, and it was also something she couldn't decipher, but knew that this man was extremely angry.

The man formed a grim line with his mouth, and held up his bloody hand.

"I thought I told you last time…" He started saying, his words laced with what felt like poison in the form of anger. Deidara just narrowed his eyes, not liking where this was going.

"You're just a tool. A tool to protect her." He continued, closing his eyes and clenching his bloody first again.

"How dare you…" He opened his eyes, and in a split second, he drove his whole arm through Deidara's chest, not giving neither Sakura nor Deidara a chance to blink. With sparks of electricity, he carried on.

"HOW DARE YOU TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME." He screamed, and withdrew his arm from his body, clutching Deidara's neck and throwing it to the side uncaringly.

"I already told you…" He said, looking at Sakura with what looked like pained eyes. Sakura just shuddered in fear, sweat rolling down her cheek.

"That if you don't die while protecting her, I'll kill you myself."

Deidara opened his eyes slowly, watching as Sakura watched him with tearful eyes. He wanted to cough, but he couldn't, he had no energy anymore. He laughed inwardly, this time he wouldn't have Sasori to save his ass or Kakazu to sew him back together, he was sure he was going to die. Oh well, he thought, his last moments were with Sakura so he couldn't care less. He was dead to the world anyway.

He couldn't feel any pain at all, he guessed that it was either because the lightning from before had numbed his body, or because of the fact his body was bleeding so much that he couldn't feel pain at all.

Sighing inwardly, he tried his best with all his might to keep his eyes open, just so that he could see her face in his last dying moments. His opponent at least granted him that wish by not taking her away straight away.

He watched her whilst smiling, she was screaming at him and the man in front of them both, trying her best to move against the man who was restraining her, trying her best to come to him. Smiling inwardly, he wanted to tell her that she had no chance to help him even if she did get past that madman, but it was ok, it was the thought that counted, right?

He just hoped that she would be happy, he hoped that she would escape from that madman and found someone to protect her and give his entire self to her. He could see some Konoha ninja already approach them, and prayed to God, something that he disdained doing, that they would be able to save her.

Running out of energy, he wondered what things would have been like if they had met on different circumstances, like if he wasn't a missing ninja. He laughed cynically, even if they wouldn't be enemies, they wouldn't have met at all. He guessed being with her would be just impossible, and instead imagined the things that he wanted to have done, like wake up to seeing her angelic face each morning, and tickling her awake, teasing her about what she had and hadn't done the night before. It would have been fun, he thought whilst smiling, if they could have been together.

'Maybe in the next lifetime… Un…' was his last thought.

Closing his eyes and smiling one last smile, he said one last farewell to her.

Darkness.

**

* * *

**

"_Koishii…_

_If you asked me to go, I would._

_If you asked me to stay, I would._

_If you asked me to kneel down and beg to you, I would._

_So why when I asked you to love me, you refused._

_Why did you then run into the arms of another?_

_I can't keep going on like this koishii,_

_**I can't keep going on like this.**__"_

* * *

**PLEASE! I repeat. PLEASE! DO NOT KILL ME!**

**I planned for Deidara to die from the start. Even though I love Deidara to bits, and hate Sasuke a lot at the moment, it IS a SasuSaku fic in the end -.- But on the bright sunny side of the story, Deidara gets found by Sasori and uh *coughs* Not saying anymore.**

**Please review guys xD It cheers me up to see you guys actually do read my stories.**

**Oh and sorry for the way it was badly written, my brain is dead, I have exams to study for, and my english is getting crapper by the second. xD**

**REVIEW PEOPLE! **

**Oh and warning, the next chapter (I think) is going to be reaaaaalllly dramatic. I think. Depending on how rubbish and crap I write it it may turn out really dramatic or just turn out really crappy xD**

**Oh and omg, cowgirl137 x-x You are a mind reader Dx I just realised how close to the actual truth you were in your pm o.O**

**What she wrote by the way ;**

**O_O DEIDARA KNOCKER HER OUT! HE KIDNAPPED SAKURA! OMG Sasuke is gunna KILL him! **

**(The other part is secreted :'D)**

**TILL NEXT TIME PEOPLE =3**

**Edit 17/5/10 Seems like fanfiction (dot) net screwed the formatting of the stories up. Sorry if you can't see the dashes I put as things to seperate the paragraphs, blame fanfic XD**


	9. Fragmented Lullabies

Well, it was really hard to write this DX I hated writing the flashback things that happened in the anime/manga, cause it didn't feel original and it felt realy annoying just copying out blatent things. Plus, I didnt know whether to use the anime or the manga version for the things, or the RAW japanese manga or anime or the translated/dubs of whatever x-x so I don't care if its wrong or not xD

**Also, the layout of this will probs be screwed up cause the uploader destroyssss things -.- Also, read and review people D: I'm a review whore, I like reviews XD **

**Enjoy ;D Oh and also, if my writing sucks dont tell me for this chapter xD I didn't like it at all tbh DX But I must update sometime xD right?**

* * *

Fragmented Lullabyes

**Chapter 8**

**Fragmented Lullabies**

* * *

She screamed as she trashed within his grip, screaming and crying after the dead blonde, shrieking as she saw his lifeless body tumble down. She cried as she felt his lifeless gaze rest upon her as her vision clouded, and hung her head low looking away from him as soon as she felt the presence that she had become so accustomed to just fade away.

"Let me go!" She cried, thrashing about within her captors strong arms, her words crumbling as wailed and gasped for breath. Her captor said nothing, and instead held her against his chest and stroking her back softly. Eventually, she stopped screaming and thrashing, continuing only to whimper as he crushed her lovingly against his chest.

"Why..?" He heard an almost inaudible whisper escape her lips, and slowly leant his cheek against the top of her head.

"Why what?" His voice came out smooth and mellow, as if he had not just killed singlehandedly one of the most dangerous S class ninja or lost his temper as he charged in. Sakura noticed this, and held back another whimper and cry, refusing to let this man relish in the fact that he was dead now. Nor did she want him to see more of her weak state than he had already seen.

"Why… Why did you kill him…" She whispered emotionlessly. Her words seemed calm, totally matching the image of her limp body leaning against his own. He just blinked slowly, closing his eyes and appearing to be thinking carefully of the words he used. After a while, he opened his eyes again and pulled away from Sakura slightly, only so much so he could look straight into her tired eyes. Staring into her eyes with such intensity, Sakura couldn't help her face burn red, hoping it was only because she was furious at him and not because of any physical attraction. He loosened his hold on her by releasing his arms for a brief second. His left arm encircling her waist, the other being brought up to her face to caress it. Stroking her cheeks with the back of his knuckles so gently that he barely touched her at all, it was like he thought she would break into pieces if he used any force at all. Sighing as he resisted the urge to possess her red lips, he settled by bringing himself closer and kissing her forehead gently, bringing her even closer to him and once again holding her against himself, but much gentler this time.

"I already warned you." He said gracefully, his words soft and gentle, completely betraying the message he was portraying. Sakura just looked blankly past his shoulder, tensing up as he held her tighter.

"I will kill _anyone_ and _everyone_ who dares try to come between us. He tried to do exactly that…" He said, his eyes dark and his hands shaking slightly from the intense anger that he emitted, crushing Sakura against him even more unintentionally and earning a painful whimper from her.

"How _dare_ he try to take you away from me…" He repeated, stopping only when he felt a murderous aura head towards him. Still holding Sakura tightly, in less than a quarter of a second, he picked her up bridal style and jumped at least fifty yards away from where they previously were.

Looking back, dizzy and undecided, Sakura saw a series of bright explosions from where they were just standing. She wanted to bring her hopes up, to say that Deidara wasn't actually dead, but she knew better.

Before she knew it, they were moving again, dodging another series of explosions. Another two hundred yards away from their attackers, she was placed down in the hollow of a tree.

"Don't worry koishii. I'll protect you." Her captor said with a rush, placing a chakra barrier around her and leaving before she could refuse his offer. Whatever he would do to _protect_ her, probably meant more people will die.

Unable to leave the tree hollow, she knew that the chakra barrier had also trapped her in, probably so that she couldn't escape again. Sighing, she gave up and settled with sitting down calmly.

Meanwhile, Sasuke flashed through distance between him and his enemies much faster than when he moved earlier with Sakura, and activated his sharingan. Dark tomos swirling, he counted each and every enemy that was currently hiding behind the dark fog. _'One… Two… Twelve…' _Sasuke counted in his head, and eventually came to 30. Smirking, he knew that this would be easy, they should have gotten at least _ten thousand_ if they wanted to even at least harm him. But he spoke too soon.

Smirking in dry humour, he recognised a familiar mob of blonde haired guys, charging towards him with a swirling ball of slicing chakra being pushed towards him. Instantly, he knew that all the other ninja had probably retreated, probably ran back home for some back up, or maybe just to hide in fear. Dodging all 11 groups of them, he settled with standing on a tree branch, smirking victoriously as he stood in front of the blonde Hokage. He knew straight away where the real one of him was, and that right now, Naruto was planning to strike him at his back with his back turned.

With a rustling of leaves, he knew what was coming, and swerved gracefully as if he were waltzing to the side, pivoting to face the next group. Catching one of the shadow clone's wrists, he tightened his grip on it slightly forcing it to shatter. Watching the rest of his shadow clones disappear in a puff of smoke, he once again returned his attention to the real one, who apparently didn't know whether to keep trying to attack, retreat, or just stay there and try to get his old friend back. Sasuke was the first to speak.

"Yo." He said casually, even having the nerve to wave to the blonde as though he was just passing by an old friend or something, which he was, but not for the most friendly of reasons people could think of.

"Teme…" Naruto started, opening his mouth bigger about to speak, he hesitated and shook his head, looking from the tree branch Sasuke was standing on back down to his own feet, closing his mouth as he did. Looking back up, he finally tried to get his words out.

"Why are you here?" He managed to blurt out, hoping that his voice wasn't too unsteady. Sasuke returned his gaze with a stronger, more piercing look, one that he used on his enemies a lot. His mouth forming a grim line, he practically spat out the next question.

"Why did you form a mission to assassinate Sakura?" He seethed through gritted teeth, obviously holding back a scowl or two. Naruto just looked at him in surprise, surprised that the Uchiha actually cared for their pink haired ex-teammate, before gulping down hard. Sakura however, was within the tree hollow that Sasuke had left her in, the opening hidden by a complex genjutsu. Sakura's eyes widened in shock, placing one of her hands over her mouth, she tried to muffle her own voice. Suddenly, even though she was used to being hated, she felt sick to her stomach and even had to fight the urge to puke. Sasuke was now glaring daggers into Naruto, completely aware that Sakura was listening to this. But it was for her own good.

"Why would you care? You tried to kill her many a time." Naruto retaliated triumphantly, trying to get his courage back, but instantly regretted it as Sasuke's glare intensified even more, his seething murderous aura was so great, that even though it wasn't aimed at him, it was practically choking the blonde.

"I would have never harmed her. Back then, I had to if I didn't want Orochimaru to kill her." He snarled, clenching his fists hard enough to make his palm bleed. Naruto noticed this, and unconsciously took a step back.

"Scared?" Sasuke asked. Naruto just gulped, not answering at all, feeling the attention coming back on to him. He was starting to worry when the reinforcements would arrive.

"I'll ask you one more time. Why did you form a mission to assassinate Sakura?" Sasuke repeated, his patience was running low with him. Naruto realised this too, and guessed it wouldn't hurt to tell him, since he thought no one else was listening.

"The council and I, as well as a lot of people in Konoha decided she was too dangerous and mentally instable to stay here. She was a threat." Naruto said thoughtfully, it was one of those rare occasions where he thought before he spoke. Sasuke knew this all beforehand, but he wanted Sakura to know that Konoha had betrayed her, and that it wasn't safe for her anywhere apart from with him. His plan worked, and he already knew that she was crying.

"Sakura… Did you hear what that asshole said?" Sasuke said calmly, gesturing to the bottom of the tree. Naruto froze. In utter shock, his gaze darted around the area, scanning it for any other presence other than Sasuke's and his own. Upon hearing a soft sniffle and whimper, he immediately realized that Sakura had been sitting there all this time, right in front of him.

He wanted to shout out to her an explanation, an apology maybe, but it was too late. Sasuke's hand was wrapped around his neck already. Not even given the chance to choke, he was crushed against the back of a tree trunk, and pinned to it by a number of kunai.

Unable to move his hands or legs, he spat out blood that rose from his punctured stomach and lungs, moving his mouth in an attempt to ask why Sasuke was letting him live for now, but his voice wouldn't come out. Strangely enough, Sasuke knew what he tried to ask him, or it could have just been the fact he can lip read.

"I'm letting you live so you can watch every single person you love and kept dear suffer and burn in hell in front of you. I'm letting you live so you can feel what you Konoha bastards have done to make Sakura and I suffer." He said, before turning his back on him and going back inside the tree hollow and watching Sakura hug her knees as she cried softly.

"I… I can't believe they all… For so long… I risked my life to protect them all!" She cried miserably, hiccupping at times as well. Stroking her hair softly, he pulled her into a comforting hug.

"Koishii..." He whispered into her ears softly, kissing her tears away. Sakura did nothing to try to push him away, nor did she listen to what he said. "Koishii… This is your punishment. This is your punishment for running away from me. I hope that you will forgive me later, though, it doesn't matter if you don't." He said softly, adding a further unspoken 'because you definitely will' in his head. She didn't respond.

Understanding how she felt, he picked her up gently, bridal style, and cancelled the chakra barrier and genjutsu. Turning around to the exit, he left the tree hollow, and sped off in the direction of the village gates.

Smirking as he had guessed there would be some type of defence and reinforcements, his grin grew darker as he thanked them silently for bringing them all within his reach.

Placing Sakura down on her feet softly, he summoned a giant snake with multiple heads. She watched cautiously as they moved towards the village and yelped in shock as they started tearing away at the gate with their teeth, slamming against the concrete walls with their bodies and tails.

Screaming as she saw several people get crushed gruesomely by tumbling buildings, she screamed out to her captor to stop it. He didn't seem to hear her, but she didn't stop trying.

"Please! Stop it! I won't run away again, I'm sorry! I-I won't disobey you again, PLEASE, stop hurting them!" She screamed to him as loud as he could, but all she got as a response was a look that reminded her of what he had said earlier. '_Koishii. This is your punishment'_.

Black marks that resembled petals grew out from his neck and around his body, totally contrasting his pale ivory skin. Sakura's eyes widened in shock. She knew those marks from somewhere, she was definitely sure of that.

_"Sakura… Who did that to you?" _A dark voice entered her head, sending chills throughout her body. Despite her already shaken self, the image of those black marks haunted her, giving her an unearthly shudder. It took all she had to not fall onto her knees and cry like a baby.

Still shaking with fright, she watched at the giant white snake with multiple heads destroyed building after building. Another cold sensation encaged her, making her feel like she was being stabbed over and over again through her chest. Tears running down her cheeks, she recognised this fear. This had definitely happened at least once before, but why couldn't she remember it?

Suddenly she heard an unnatural but familiar shriek, facing her captor once again; she guessed that somehow Naruto had gotten loose. She held her breath in pain as she watched his bloody form charge at her captor's unaware body, but the rest she didn't know as everything had moved in a sudden flash. Before she realised it, she was in the air falling as Sasuke held her tightly. The harsh wind had a scent of pure grounded metal, so she braced herself for more swift movement.

Just as she predicted, Sasuke darted from place to place as more exploding kunais were sent towards him, as well as various other weapons. Sakura watched her captor's facial expressions. She had never seen anyone so talented before; he could dodge hundreds of attacks in less than a second whilst carrying a burden, and not even break a sweat. In fact, during the whole ordeal, he had never once taken his gaze off of her.

Finally, after a dozen more groups of attacks, Sasuke put Sakura down on her feet. Sakura didn't understand why he did that, nor did she understand the glint in his eye as he did that, until one of the snake heads approached her. The head curled around Sakura gently, entrapping her safely with its neck (A/N Ok, wtf do you call that thing? XD Is it a neck or a body) and lifting her high up above the village gates. Her eyes cloudy pebbles, she watched miserably as she saw the other several heads smashing and destroying more houses and shops.

Looking down she watched as Naruto, once again, tried to attack her captor. Naruto had made at least 40 shadow clones of himself, and her captor did nothing but smirk at him knowingly. She guessed because he had the sharingan, he would be able to see through all of Naruto's attacks. More of the fighting went on, and eventually she could see that the Uchiha had gotten tired of it all.

Sasuke didn't even have to make the seals, he only had to channel the chakra carefully which had taken him only a few months to master. Eventually, a huge lightning orb was placed in right hand, and what could have been described as birds chirping deafened everyone around them. She guessed that it would be just a much flashier version of Kakashi's chidori, though she wondered how he had attained it. In response, Naruto just growled, the kyuubi part of him becoming more and more in control. Also not forming any seals at all, he formed a huge version of his normal raesengan, and dove in towards Sasuke as he did likewise.

Sakura was in indescribable pain. As soon as they had both completed their jutsu's, her head started splitting, she was starting to lose control over her own body, and she knew she would soon lose consciousness.

The last thing she knew that happened whilst she was awake, was _him_ kissing her on the back of her head gently whilst placing a palm over her eyes and saying, _'It's time to end this koishii. It's time to say goodbye."_

* * *

Breathing rushedly, she failed adapt to her surroundings. Piercing bright sunlight blinded her eyes, forcing her to wince as she felt herself steadily drop.

After a while, the light seemed to grow fainted, and felt herself become encaged by the darkness. Trying to scream, she found she had no voice or freedom in her movements.

Eventually, the constant falling stopped, and she could once again see.

She stood there, trying to catch her bearings. She was on what looked like a hospital roof… Konoha's hospital roof…

Looking around, all she could see was white sheets hanging to dry under the hot sun. That sun felt so nostalgic, as if it were one of those summer days that had left her when everyone around her died. Looking around again, she looked down to her feet and noticed a trailing dress that cut her above her knees. Glancing at the rest of her dress, she noticed she was wearing the exact same outfit she wore when she was about 13. Gasping as she realized that she was in Konoha again, she definitely knew that she was in either a dream or a genjutsu again.

Her thinking stopped as she heard loud quarrelling from the other side of those white sheets. Instinctively, her body led her there, her body approaching where the bickering had come from and reached for one of the white sheets blocking her view.

Her instincts telling her something was wrong, she could only find out what it was too late.

Shrieking as hot flames immediately burned the white sheet she was touching into a crisp, she jumped back and fell down onto her butt. Getting up again, she cursed her 13 year old self for not being as agile and flexible as she wanted herself to be.

But that was when she saw it, both a younger Naruto and a younger version of the man who had captured her.

They were charging at each other, rasengan in Naruto's hand, chidori in the other.

Eyes wide as she watched them charge into their death, something uncontrollable took over her body and ran towards them, as if she were attempting to sacrifice herself so that neither of them would die.

Both the boys noticed this, but gritted their teeth and cursed at the fact that they couldn't stop their attacks.

Sakura screamed, and everything was in slow motion.

This fleeting feeling of fear…

This trembling feeling of worry and care…

That long forgotten feeling of love…

All of those crept up Sakura's spine, forcing her to remember the dreams and hopes that she had buried deep down.

Still screaming, everything went dark as she closed her eyes as she screamed and ran towards them, anticipating the worst case scenario and waiting for someone to guide her to the afterlife.

But it never came.

Instead, when she opened her eyes again, the familiar figure of her old teacher, Kakashi, stood behind her, effectively grabbing both of their wrists and throwing them at opposite directions, probably breaking a few bones from the impacts.

She stood gaping, she had never remembered this happening, and she couldn't remember the last time her old teacher had tried to help her.

Ready for combat or retaliation from the older jounin, she waited for him to strike her. But he never did. All he did was raise an eyebrow, before facing the other two and scolding them for using those techniques.

Unsure of what to do, she had felt like she didn't belong in this scene anymore, but still was unsure why Kakashi hadn't tried to kill her yet, like he was supposed to in Naruto's orders. That was until she remembered that she was in her 13 year old state, dream or genjutsu.

Hesitating before glancing over to the younger form of her captor, she swallowed nervously as he stood up. Piercing her with a stony glare, he huffed before turning to leave.

At that moment, she was dealt another pang in the head, and the scenery suddenly changed to a hospital bed.

Guessing she was in the hospital still, she wondered what had happened as she stared at his pale face.

Raven locks splurged across his face and the white pillows as he stared upwards, she cringed as she felt worry approach her again. Not understanding why she would feel this way, she sat down on a chair and looked at her surroundings.

Across her, was an ordinary wooden table, the same she had been forced to look at for hours on end when she was still working as a doctor. On top of that desk, was a glass vase filled with a few white roses. Chuckling inwardly, she guessed he was pretty popular with the girls even when he was young. Her thought was interrupted as she felt a chilling ghostly breeze brush past her, forcing a swift image to be input into her head.

The image was of her, standing in front of Ino whilst holding that same white flower. Gulping, she guessed she was the one who bought them, but winced in pain as she tried to remember why.

A few painful moments passed, and she only realised until she had finished that she had been peeling and cutting an apple. In amazement she watched her body move against her will again as her hands placed the apple slices onto a single porcelain plate, brushing the peelings into a nearby bin. Somehow as well, Naruto was lying on the floor in pain. Her mouth moving on its own as well, her voice seemed to have a mind of its own too. For some reason, she sounded cheerful and she could have guessed she looked cheerful too. Looking down onto the apple, she watched herself offer small talk to her company, not looking up until she heard a rustle beside her.

As she did, she noticed out of the corner of her eyes that he was staring.

He was watching her slowly, with an unreadable expression. Fighting the urge to glare at him, she could have sighed if she could as her body placed the plate on her lap and moved closer towards him.

Her mouth moving on its own as well, her voice seemed to have a mind of its own too.

"_-kun… Here, have some apple."

Suddenly, in a flash the younger version slapped her hand away making her yelp with surprise, sending the plate to smash against the walls in the process. Immediately, before she could help it, pain and rejection caused her to numb, and she could only watch as he tried to pick up a fight with Naruto. Judging from the circumstances, earlier he _wasn't_ staring at her, and this probably happened before the first scene. Not even taking into account what was happening, she let her body take charge again and instead remained inside of herself, trying to work out why she felt like she wanted to curl up into a little ball and cry.

After a while of them arguing, they seemed to come to an agreement. Sakura once again tried to analyse the situation, and tried to force herself out of whatever she was in but to no avail. Watching the raven haired teenager move, she watched sadly as he crushed the apple slices she had so lovingly made earlier for him and walk past her, not even acknowledging her. She stood there, not knowing why she had tried so hard for someone like him in the first place.

Hesitating, she watched as they exited the room, and once again more lights surrounded her, the scene changing.

This time, she was in a forest. More specifically, that disgusting forest that they had force her to supervise a chuunin exam once or twice before.

Looking around, she saw locks of her own hair spooled generously across the forest floor. Delayed pain in her face, her body and her head panged her, and this time she was sure it wasn't because of all this confusion. Judging from the blood trickling down her cheeks and forehead, she guessed she had been pretty beat up. Still looking around, she noticed quite a few people around her. Some of them she could recognise, Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji, even Neji, Lee and Tenten. The others, she could have sworn she had never seen them before in her life, but didn't just in case she was wrong. She had been seeing quite a lot of events that she couldn't recall ever happening before, and that she was sure that it was most likely that these events really did happen.

Noticing a vast similarity between them all, she saw them all stare behind her, mostly with a great amount of fear. Watching Ino more closely, she could watch her lips move in slow, bewildered movements.

"_ _-kun..."_ She had mouthed, forcing Sakura to once again lose the control over her body. Turning around, was once again that younger version of her captor, and an injured Naruto. Her captor though, was unleashing a huge ferocious chakra shield, unleashing _black marks_ all over his body. Gulping as she knew she had seen them before, she joined the rest of them and watched wide eyed, watching the teenage boy rise slowly surrounded by a deathly aura.

"Sa_-kun…" She said, this time something came over her, and she could remember that his name started with the katakana for sa. She didn't know why, and she didn't know why, but all of a sudden, he became so familiar to her, like she had known him for all her life.

"Sakura… Who did that to you..?" She heard that mellow, deep voice again; her name rolling off of his tongue smoothly. If not for the circumstances, she guessed she would have blushed again. Instead, she was scared of him striking or attacking her, not knowing of course what the circumstances before was. So when he called her name, all she could do was tremble, trying to think back what the black seals meant.

"…Sa_-kun… Your body… it's…" Her mouth moved once again against her will. All she got though was a, "It's ok… I feel much better…" and some rambling about being an avenger.

"Answer me Sakura. **Who did that to you?**" He once again asked, sending chills all over her body. She could feel his blood red eyes on her, completely different from the hospital scene that she had just been through, where her very existence had pretty much been ignored. Now, all she wanted was to go back to being ignored again, rather than have this furious and possibly a mass murdering psychopath giving her every single part of his attention.

It was completely silent between the pause that he gave her to answer him, completely silent until one of those men that she couldn't identify spoke. He wore a murky shirt with the kanji for 'Death' printed over and over again on it, and wore noticeable amounts of bandages over his arms.

If Sakura had any doubt whether or not this young teenager was the younger version of her captor still, her doubts were cleared.

Immediately after that man who another named 'Zaku' had said the two words that condemned him, the raven haired teenager turned to him, glaring holes into him. If looks could kill, Zaku would have been killed over and over in just seconds.

Totally ignorant of the warnings that both the sharingan user and his teammate, 'Dosu' was trying to send him, he went in for the kill.

Pointing his arms towards him, Sakura and Naruto behind him, he dealt out his air crushing attack.

Blowing away everything in his path, everyone including his own teammates winced at the extreme blowback force that came as a resultant of the attack. Sakura couldn't move meanwhile, her body wouldn't move for her, but _he_ did.

Smirking after there appeared to be nothing but rubble in front of him, he grinned victoriously as he gloated.

"Seems like they got blown into pieces." He chuckled, before a chilling voice cut him short of his glory.

"Who the heck did?" The voice came from behind, smacking Zaku in the face and sending him flying to the other side of the clearing.

Sakura pulled her arms from in front of her, watching as her captor and now her rescuer sped towards him with inhuman speed. Gaping as she noticed his speed now was only a few seconds shorter than his future self, amazed again at how strong this person was back then she could do nothing but watch as he grinned sadistically.

He was currently gripping Zaku's arms, stepping on his back in the process. Sakura could only watch in fear as he sinisterly chuckled in spite of the pain he was sending to his victim. Getting queasy now, she could tell he was enjoying whatever he was doing to Zaku, and she knew that everyone surrounding him knew it too.

Everything happened so slowly, two vicious and sickening cracks echoed in the air as the Uchiha tossed the man away. Turning around, now facing Sakura once again, he walked past her ignoring her again; totally intent to kill.

Still shivering, she dreaded it when her body turned herself around, staring at him.

She couldn't even see his face yet goose bumps spread across her arms violently. Eventually, she tried to blink away any tears that threatened to fall. She didn't know why she wanted to cry, she really doubted it was solely just because she was scared. It was probably because of the heart wrenching pang in her chest that seemed to be screaming out to her.

With every step he took towards their other attacker, the voices in her head became louder and louder, until eventually it was screaming at her.

'_No… This isn't him…' _It urged inside her brain, causing her to feel nauseous and confused.

'_This can't be like him… I know him…' _The voice grew louder and louder.

'_No… This isn't him!'_ The voice was now deafening, and in an effort to get away from the screaming voices, her body instinctively ran towards him, binding him with a heart filled hug.

"Stop…" She pleaded, tears desperately running down her cheeks as the voices subsided. When she felt the muscles on his back tighten, her hold tightened on him as well, unconsciously sinking into the feel of him and somehow feeling safer than she had ever felt before in her entire life. She had no idea what had come over her, and she also knew that it was definitely herself that moved, not some controlled illusion.

Her heart still beating rapidly, she was unsure what to do now. She would have no help from her old self, she was sure of that.

"Please…" She continued to plead. She didn't know this man personally, but all she knew was that she didn't want to see him continue.

"Please stop… Sa _-kun…" She cried into his back, closing her eyes and gulping, bracing herself for the worst.

But it never came.

Instead, he relaxed and leaned back into her slightly, falling as he lost all feeling in his legs. Sensing his distress, she was tempted to let go and run away, but something inside her made her stay. Something inside of her made her want to stay by his side. Sighing with vast relief, she watched him grip his hand as if he had no idea what he had become. Somehow, she didn't doubt him as he sat there horrified. Out of pure whim, she put her hand on his, giving him the message that she was there for him. He didn't look back at her, but she knew he understood as he squeezed her little finger slightly.

That small moment with each other hurt her though. After going through her current situation, she seriously doubted that any of this was really an illusion, and that these events probably did happen before. It would have explained almost everything. Like how her captor knew her and Naruto, and other things like why she had short hair and kept it. The only problem was, why didn't she remember any of these things happening? She had convinced herself that she probably cut her hair a long time ago out of pure whim, because she forgot why and how it happened. When she heard her captor and Naruto talking, she told herself that many different kinds of people knew the hokage. But now, she could see that it was much than all that.

The people around her suddenly appearing, everything set into motion again. But still, they left her and the Uchiha alone; she didn't know whether it was because of pure consideration for them, or the fact they were still scared shitless of the Uchiha.

She never found out too.

The trees started swirling around her, the wind lifting her into the air, and instantly she dreaded what would happen next.

Guessing she would either be sent back to the present or be sent yet again to another scene, she decided she didn't want to go to either of them. All she wanted now was to get the throbbing pain in her head and her chest to go away, and to get some sleep. Maybe a shower too.

Darkness crept from beneath her, but this time it wasn't because of any illusion. The setting was genuinely set in darkness, at night probably.

She didn't know what she was supposed to be doing there, she seemed to be hiding behind some trees near the exit of the village. Still tired and in pain from her frequent headaches, a cold chilling breeze sobered her up.

Gasping sharply as she heard approaching footsteps, she slowly walked to the main road, stopping only when she saw _him_ again. But this time, he looked and felt slightly different.

He looked tranquil, but his aura and breathing patterns showed obvious aggression and stress. His face looked more mature and sculpted, but only just slightly. Wondering what he was doing here, her eyes glanced to his backpack. Eyes widening as she understood what was happening, she felt her throat go dry as he asked her why she was in such a place at that time of night. Her body taking over her once again she heard her own voice answer that it was the road to the exit, saddening as he passed her by uncaringly.

A few footsteps more and she felt angry and frightened tears roll down her cheeks. She guessed it was something inside of her made her want him not to go.

Another few more footsteps, and the conversation began.

"Why..?" She asked, he wasn't even looking at her as he walked on. Turning around to see his back, she continued to ask why he wouldn't tell her anything.

All she got back was a blunt response saying it was never any of her business.

Her body taking over her choice of words, she heard herself talk about events that she swore never happened. The way she said it too, was so convincing, she didn't doubt that they ever happened. The tears kept falling down, and all she saw as a reaction from him was the slight tension of his back whenever she told him about his family. She listened to herself scream to him the fact she knew he had no family and that she still had hers, wondering confusedly why she was uttering such corny lines, like how she would feel just as lonely if he was gone. He seemed used to it though, but he surprised her once again as she felt the slightest flicker of regret and emotion.

Slowly, the scene continued. More ignoring, more pleading, more begging. Suddenly, she got sick of her own voice, and she was sure he was too. But she found that as she begged and pleaded more, the more erratic his emotions became, and the more he wanted to stay.

A sinking feeling plummeting in her stomach, she suddenly found she couldn't breathe. Choking out as memories surged through her head, she almost screamed as the pain became unbearable. Her body in her control, he just stood there, talking like a record player and moving as if he were seeing something else, as if she wasn't screaming in pain in front of him.

The pain grew worse as every second past by. Memories of her family, memories of Ino, memories of Tsunade all rushed past. Memories of her having picnics and sparring sessions against Lee, Tenten, Neji, Hinata warped as memories of herself teasing and flirting with Naruto and Sai when she was slightly younger. At the point where she saw herself trying to unmask Kakashi with the help of Naruto and Sai the pain was almost unbearable. But she was mistaken as her legs gave way as she clutched the ground in pain, writhing and shrieking with every heartbeat.

Slowly, the memories of _him_ started flooding in. The time she first met him, the time she found out she was in the same team as her and would be for the next few years, the time when he had been hurt in their first C rank mission. Her heart wrenching in pain as well as her head as she saw his broken form, suddenly she couldn't even breathe anymore. More and more memories of him came back to her, and the funny thing was she didn't hate the man who had kidnapped her anymore, all she could do was remember his old arrogant smile, the one that she had fallen in love with so many years ago. Closing her eyes to concentrate, this time she tried letting her memories come back to her instead of fighting them, and the pain disappeared as fast as it came.

When she opened her eyes again, sunlight blinded her. Eyes darting around, desperate to see _him_ again, desperate to know that the village was unharmed. And it was. For now at least.

When she spotted them, she watched as Naruto's slumped figure fell from his arm, blood slaked around the blonde's torso. Eyes slowly turning to the Uchiha, she noticed something unrecognisable.

Her heart dropping to her stomach, her heart almost stopped when she deciphered what it was. It was a mix of fear and subtle discomfort, added in with obvious hesitant movements. This told Sakura everything.

_He was scared._

Not scared of her literally, but scared what her reaction would be. What would her reaction be? Sakura thought to herself, not even she knew what to think.

Unfortunately, she didn't have much time to think about it either, since he was already coming close to her.

His legs dragging hesitantly, he looked at her once before looking down to the floor awkwardly, all of his normal self confidence gone. In fact, he looked like he wanted to hide under a rock.

"Sakura…" His voice was a mere whisper as he said it, saying it as he slightly trembled as he stared at a blade of leaf beside his foot. It took him a few moments to gather the courage to look up at her, but when he did he was given the shock of his life.

"Sasuke-kun…" She said in that sweet voice of hers, crying out his name happily, smiling as she cried.

**

* * *

**

"_Do you remember now?_

_**Do you remember the day that we met?**_

_Can you tell me, what my name is?_

_**Don't worry**__ if you can't yet, we can take this __**slowly**_

_I'm not the most patient, _

_**But I'll try**__."_

* * *

^^ Theres supposed to be a friggin dash here . I tried like 5 times but it wont work -.-

Kay go go go review! Also like I said at the start, sorry for the bad quality fo the chapter :( I didn't like writing this one. Review please D: It might JUST bring the next chapter faster ;D


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